Switching puberty rather than stopping it
Dr Helen Webberley on Triggernometry: the trans debate, with Konstantin Kisin, Triggernometry
Puberty blockers stop young trans people from going through puberty altogether, leaving them in a kind of suspended childhood with no development at all. The worry is that they miss out on something essential, and that their bodies are simply put on hold.
What I was trying to explain there is that we are not stopping puberty, we are switching it. A trans boy's body developing through oestrogen is not neutral, it is actively wrong for him, and deeply uncomfortable in ways that go far beyond the physical. When we give him testosterone instead, he goes through puberty. Male puberty, because his identity is male, and his body follows. The same is true for trans girls. The goal was never to avoid development; it was to make sure the development that happens is the right one. That is not a pause. That is care.
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