politics

Nothing disingenuous here, just asking questions so I can better understand your position. It's clear that you're passionate about the welfare of children.

I was operating under the assumption that all your statements in this thread were part of a larger argument for your position. I'll walk through my thought process, hopefully you can correct my inference.

Those hormones are responsible for more than just sexual development. We can't actually pause our bodies. We are bypassing a part of the development phase and saying "see it started again" when in reality it was just continuing for the remaining period it was supposed to be active for.

Here you state that hormones are essential for more than just sexual development, no disagreement there. The statement was made in the context of a discussion about brain development, correct?

This is EXACTLY the point I'm making. Should we shove steroids into the boy and estrogen into the girl? Push up and padded bras in lieu of boob jobs? Are we in such a hurry to cram drugs down someone's throat that we can't let them develop and then make a decision on their own when they are capable of?

Here you imply that individuals whose bodies do not produce the hormones associated with the sex they were assigned at birth should not be given treatment to rectify that.

So I see two claims here: first, that hormones during puberty are required for brain development, and second, that individuals should wait until they are legally adults to receive any kind of hormone-related medical treatment.

A catch-22 is by definition circular nonsense, a paradox that's only way out leads you right back into it.

So say an individual doesn't start puberty for whatever reason (which starts on average between ages 8 and 14, according to the NIH). This means, according to your assertion, that their brain will lack the necessary chemicals to mature in the average timescale. Meaning, that at 18 – the age of consent for most of the US and when you assert that an individual is mature enough to make these decisions – their brain will not be mature enough to make that decision. How can they ever get the treatment they need to enable that development if their brain never develops to the point you would be comfortable with them making that decision? Wouldn't they still be an immature teenager trapped in an adult body, not ready to understand the consequences of their actions? Who gets to make the medical decision for them, if anyone, or are they trapped in some kind of limbo, unable to consent to anything for their entire lives?

And yes while we can use drugs for treatment - very frequently we employ counseling and other less drastic methods before resorting to drugs.

Can you help me find some more information on this? To my knowledge, therapy and counseling are essential parts of treatment for gender dysphoria, but it sounds like there must be doctors recklessly prescribing hormone therapy and I'd love to know more about that so I'm not caught off guard again.