> Blocking puberty until eighteen is a harmful intervention in itself
For a trans kid, going thru the wrong puberty is harmful. The best thing would be hormones at puberty. But given issues around informed consent, puberty blockers are a valid compromise.
Calling them harmful without considering the harm of the alternative is not honest.
Puberty is a stage of natural maturation of the body. There is only one, as per your sex, and you can't go through the wrong one. The puberty of the opposite sex is not an option.
This conception of the "wrong puberty" as something that needs to be blocked is as absurd as all that "born in the wrong body" ideological nonsense.
Most importantly, children can't meaningfully consent to having their sexual function permanently damaged.
The way you experience puberty is (to some extent) a result of the hormones in your body. Generally the hormones in your body are a result of your sex, however, it is possible to stop your body from producing certain hormones, and replace them with different hormones. In this way, one can have a puberty more similar to a different sex than one’s own.
Why do you think you can’t experience the wrong one? Also, unless you are saying there is only one sex, how could there only be one puberty?
It does involve hormones as part of the mechanism but puberty is primarily about the maturation of the reproductive system, and how this is experienced depends on one's sex.
To take female puberty as an example, this is the growth and development of the uterus, ovaries, labia and breasts to reach their mature form and function. Most importantly, the menstrual cycle begins, making pregnancy possible.
If a boy has testosterone blocked and is given estrogen instead, he doesn't experience any of this, except perhaps some breast tissue growth and redistribution of fat. His penis and testicles will not develop further and he will probably remain sterile.
However, he doesn't have a female reproductive system, so this is not more similar to female puberty. What he's experiencing is stunted male development, a pharmaceutically-induced eunuch state.
There is no option for him to go through female puberty rather than male puberty, because he lacks the type of reproductive system that would make this possible. As female puberty is not an experience available to him, it makes no sense to describe male puberty as being the "wrong puberty" for him.
Likewise for girls and the impossibility of experiencing male puberty.
And yet the vast majority of "puberty blockers" are given to cis kids who experience precocious puberty.
Who are we to question God's natural order? If a 9 year old girl with precocious puberty is uncomfortable being oggled by old men, that's just fine because puberty can never be wrong.
Besides, she can't meaningfully consent to medically delaying puberty, anyway.
> In interviews and in online forums, women who took the drug as young girls or initiated a daughter’s treatment described harsh side effects that have been well-documented in adults.
Learning about adverse side effects by talking about their experiences is LITERALLY what you’re advocating for a ban on. I’d say by any basic morality you’re not allowed to cite that as evidence if you want it banned.
The term "intersex" is no longer used by the medical community, as it wrongly implies that there are some people who are "between" male and female. The contemporary term is "differences in sex development" or DSD. E.g. people with complete androgen insensitive syndrome are male, even if they may outwardly appear female.
I think this question concedes that there is some possibility that one could experience an incorrect puberty.
Given the definition of maturity is being fully grown, this comes across as an inherently unhelpful thing to ask. If we say “only once someone is fully grown they are able to determine if they experienced the incorrect puberty” then this makes it impossible to help children who are going to experience the incorrect puberty. Unless we have some way to determine a child is trans without any input from them, there becomes no way to help them.
The possibility of being unable to help people is not an excuse for hurting them or others. Generally if you can't know the correct action than you should stick to the status quo.
What's next, gene therapy because the embryo might want to be a different race when it grows up?
For a trans kid, going thru the wrong puberty is harmful. The best thing would be hormones at puberty. But given issues around informed consent, puberty blockers are a valid compromise.
Calling them harmful without considering the harm of the alternative is not honest.