American government - medical: Allow hormone treatment for transgender individuals under the age of 16

Allow hormone treatment for transgender individuals under the age of 16

Hello,

I just signed the following petition addressed to: American government - medical.

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Allow hormone treatment for transgender individuals under the age of 16

The International Endocrine Society (IES) 1 issued a draft set of guidelines in early 2008-DEC. 2 They are co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE), The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society (LWPES).

The guidelines recommend that some transgendered children as young as 12 years-of-age should be given medication to suppress puberty. This would greatly simplify sex reassignment surgery if they decide to undergo it later in adulthood.

The main benefit from such puberty blockers would be the avoidance of the inevitable body changes caused by puberty. For example, a male-to-female (MTF) transexual could avoid having her voice deepen, a masculine bone structure appear, her Adam's Apple enlarge, and hair growth on her face. A female-to-male (FTM) could avoid developing breasts, feminine shaped hips, and female bone structure elsewhere. Without these bodily changes, there would be less to change during sex reassignment surgery (SRS).

Another benefit of putting off puberty would be that the individual would be more mature and capable of making a settled decision in their mid-teens rather than their pre-teens. If, at the age of 16 or so, they decide to not proceed with sex reassignment surgery when they are adults, they can simply stop the puberty blocker medication and go through puberty.

Changes at puberty are normal, natural, and anticipated to the over 99% of youths who are cisgendered -- i.e. whose genetic gender matches their perceived gender. But they can be terrifying and repulsive to a transgendered person. The latter are prone to depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, and, sadly, completed suicide. There is a phrase -- the 50% Rule -- used by many transgendered and transexual individuals. It refers to the common belief that 50% of all untreated transsexuals die before the age of 30, usually by suicide.

By preventing puberty from occurring naturally, various physical changes would not have to be corrected by surgery and other procedures. Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) would probably result in body contours and other features that more accurate resemble that of the desired sex.

The IES recommendations are largely based on the experience of a clinic in the Netherlands which has prescribed puberty blockers to over 70 teens under the age of 16. Henriette Delemarre-van de Waal of Leiden University Medical Center has been involved in the testing. She said:

"Until now, we don t have any patient who has regretted their decision on the treatment. ... [Without treatment] they self-harm, they develop an enormous aversion against their bodies, they isolate themselves, and their school performance suffers." 6

The mother of one MTF transsexual in London UK described her daughter's experience. She started to question her male body at the age of 4. She found the pubertal changes that started at age 12 to be intolerable. She started to harm herself and threatened several times to cut off her penis. She is now 15 and wants to start her sexual reassignment when she is 16. Her mother expects her daughter to still have problems ahead, but said that they would be "increased by 600 percent" if she had gone through normal puberty. The daughter has stated that "I would rather die than be a man." 6

Peggy Cohen-Kettenis of the Free University of Amsterdam Medical Center said:

"People are always afraid that if will be harmful for the children. But what they never take into account is that it is also harmful to not give them this treatment." 6

Some clinics in Australia, Canada, Germany, the U.S., and elsewhere have started to offer treatment to transgendered teens in order to suppress the onset of puberty. The medication is prohibited by law in the UK.
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Thank you,

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