I'm autistic myself, and I wish puberty blockers had been an option back when I was younger. Not so much for gender issues (though I maintain that autistic people should have their own genders, for exactly the reasons you mention, and go as non-binary in places that insist on a gender but allow more than two options) but because puberty does icky stuff with your body that is extra stress and anguish on top of everything else you're already trying to figure out. Being able to delay it for a while would have been great for my mental health.
I disagree with you where you suggest not to allow potential trans men to transition, but to allow it for potential trans women. I think the same standards should be applied to both. The reason for this is that, frankly, people increasingly know what to look for, the individual themselves knows what to look for, and with any perception beyond looking at the pitch of one's voice and the presence or absence of facial hair, it is pretty easy to tell trans men apart from biological men. Further, trans men who transition after puberty are not generally going to have most of the markers of physical masculinity that cause certain men to be more successful, more respected, better paid than others, and are going to be smaller and weaker such that they are in much more danger if they are ever in a situation where a physical fight could arise. They will also be more likely to have low status in their social groups, if they are associating outside of LGBT circles; outside of the personal benefit, the desire to fit in and resemble one's family, the desire to physically pass, etc., the social, romantic, and professional success of an individual who resembles a typical male will tend to be quite a bit higher than that of an individual who resembles a small, weak, and neotenous male.
"If a person goes through a male puberty, they will have a deeper voice, which requires hundreds of hours of voice therapy to make feminine; even then results are mixed."
Then why do strangers invariably call me "ma'am" when I speak to them on the telephone? (I'm not offended by this, just confused.)
> One of the most important protective factors for trans people is acceptance.
Not to deny obviously that acceptance/ supportiveness is a good thing, but the old "correlation is not causality" applies here as almost everywhere- the kind of people who have family that are likely to accept their decisions are likely to be less suicidal for all sorts of genetic and environmental reasons that have nothing directly to do with the acceptance of their trans status per se.
Hm... I guess you are my best chance at asking. What _do_ we know about side effects of puberty blockers? (To put it slightly differently, are there any known reasons besides tradition, status quo bias, and fear of unknown unknowns - the last one especially being reasonable! - that we don't feed every child puberty blockers, to not have them in the awkward situation where they want sex but are not allowed to have it yet?)
I'm autistic myself, and I wish puberty blockers had been an option back when I was younger. Not so much for gender issues (though I maintain that autistic people should have their own genders, for exactly the reasons you mention, and go as non-binary in places that insist on a gender but allow more than two options) but because puberty does icky stuff with your body that is extra stress and anguish on top of everything else you're already trying to figure out. Being able to delay it for a while would have been great for my mental health.
I disagree with you where you suggest not to allow potential trans men to transition, but to allow it for potential trans women. I think the same standards should be applied to both. The reason for this is that, frankly, people increasingly know what to look for, the individual themselves knows what to look for, and with any perception beyond looking at the pitch of one's voice and the presence or absence of facial hair, it is pretty easy to tell trans men apart from biological men. Further, trans men who transition after puberty are not generally going to have most of the markers of physical masculinity that cause certain men to be more successful, more respected, better paid than others, and are going to be smaller and weaker such that they are in much more danger if they are ever in a situation where a physical fight could arise. They will also be more likely to have low status in their social groups, if they are associating outside of LGBT circles; outside of the personal benefit, the desire to fit in and resemble one's family, the desire to physically pass, etc., the social, romantic, and professional success of an individual who resembles a typical male will tend to be quite a bit higher than that of an individual who resembles a small, weak, and neotenous male.
"If a person goes through a male puberty, they will have a deeper voice, which requires hundreds of hours of voice therapy to make feminine; even then results are mixed."
Then why do strangers invariably call me "ma'am" when I speak to them on the telephone? (I'm not offended by this, just confused.)
> One of the most important protective factors for trans people is acceptance.
Not to deny obviously that acceptance/ supportiveness is a good thing, but the old "correlation is not causality" applies here as almost everywhere- the kind of people who have family that are likely to accept their decisions are likely to be less suicidal for all sorts of genetic and environmental reasons that have nothing directly to do with the acceptance of their trans status per se.
Hm... I guess you are my best chance at asking. What _do_ we know about side effects of puberty blockers? (To put it slightly differently, are there any known reasons besides tradition, status quo bias, and fear of unknown unknowns - the last one especially being reasonable! - that we don't feed every child puberty blockers, to not have them in the awkward situation where they want sex but are not allowed to have it yet?)