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It depends how you define castration. The strict definition would be a double orchiectomy. If these chemicals made your balls wither up and drop off then yes, that plainly qualifies as chemically induced castration.
It feels like the original chemical castration usage must have arisen as a way to square the demands to castrate sex offenders with a means to backtrack in the face of appeals or wrongful convictions and preserve human rights: We'll castrate them [permanently] and any objections are moot because if we get it wrong it's totally reversible [and not really castration].
If you define it as anything that reduces normal sexual function then you put it on a vague and very wide spectrum and it becomes a matter of arguing the balance. The trouble is that would drag a lot of other things into the category. Too much whisky? Recreational amphetamines? SSRIs? It's starting to look like I've been chemically castrated a few times and it reversed rapidly with a good night's sleep and some eggs and coffee. What looked like a powerful rhetorical weapon to attack the trans movement finds itself a little impotent.
What if you carefully constructed a definition that captures the trans youth movement but leaves clinically depressed fans of Lemmy Kilmister unaffected? Well then it just looks like you're playing your own version of the "things are what they are because I said so" game.
If you think puberty blockers are bad because they have irreversible negative effects on fertility and sexual function then you can make that argument without the need for hyperbole.
Even if you're right about the origins of the term, it is a simple fact that the term was used in academic / law-enforcement literature, and no one seemed to object. I'm merely asking if puberty blockers fit into that previously-used-without-objection definition. My conclusion is: yes. Do you disagree?
I'm using the term in the exact same way it was used before puberty blockers entered public discourse, and even allowing for some stricter criteria that would stem from the discrepancy between the technical and colloquial terms. If this is hyperbole, every academic who has ever used the term was being hyperbolic.
I don't agree with the definition. It would classify a child being prescribed puberty blockers as an on-label treatment for precocious puberty as being chemically castrated.
I don't really see the issue, don't we already say that about cancer treatments? "We have to chemically castrate you to fight your cancer" sounds like a concise way of describing the costs and benefits of the treatment.
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