Actually, no. This has been studied. There are no ill effects in brain development when you give adolescents puberty blockers that we can tell. You can use the google search <transgender puberty blockers brain development> to find articles, from actual doctors, with references saying so.
I'm sorry to contradict you. We currently do not know what effect puberty blockers have. There's not enough research.
It's also not true that there are no ill effects in brain developments; studies with animals have shown some concerning results with regards to cognitive functions.
So, it would be more honest to say; "Actually, we don't know. This has not been studied enough."
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01053 (“the findings suggest that GnRH treated CPP girls do not differ in their cognitive functioning, behavioural, and social problems from the same age peers”, albeit findings on emotional regulation and reactivity are inconclusive - which is not the same thing as bad, just their experiment design didn’t give them a clear answer).
DOI 10.10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.03.007
We have no strong evidence that it is unsafe in humans, and a bunch of evidence that it is safe.
The Economist is a weird source for a medical research discussion.
Hey, thanks for the link! I'm not sure that the article is too relevant though, since it is about the effects of puberty blocker in treatment of precocious puberty.
Which brings us to the reason why I linked to the Economist article; it gives a pretty good overview about the various concerns of various groups and gives some rudimentary overview about the current understanding. It's pretty hard for laypersons to really understand the jargon in all these papers and it's easy to overlook subtle but important details.
I think my point still stands; we don't know enough yet. We need more research.
Aside from that, sure. I’m up for more research (that doesn’t harm trans kids - smarter people than I know experiment designs which don’t result in people receiving subpar treatment for years on end). More research on trans people is welcome, there’s fuck-all of it out there, and now the meantime, we must do our best to use what we do know to help people.
> More research on trans people is welcome, there’s fuck-all of it out there, and now the meantime, we must do our best to use what we do know to help people.
