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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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They're claiming blockers are reversible within the bounds of normal use, delaying puberty for a few years.

They would not work as a cure for precarious puberty if they were reversible.

It'd be nicer to get these nested comment threads on my more interesting posts, instead it's when i nitpick claim about gender or trans stuff

anyway, not sure what you mean. 'reversible', as far as I know, basically means 'when you stop blockers, you'll go through puberty normally, and grow up normally, with no negative health effects'. Precocious puberty itself causes health issues, so blockers, so they'd say, moves puberty from 'too early' to 'normal', while gender related blockers move puberty from 'normal' to 'later, but still fine'.

It'd be nicer to get these nested comment threads on my more interesting posts

Maybe they're not that interesting :>

anyway, not sure what you mean. 'reversible', as far as I know, basically means 'when you stop blockers, you'll go through puberty normally, and grow up normally, with no negative health effects

Under that definition they are not reversible, and if that's how they worked, your precarious puberty would catch up to you the same way normal puberty would to trans / gender questioning kids.

And if you want to "what are you talking about? Puberty doesn't catch up to you once you stop taking blockers", that's exactly my point.

Certainly more interesting. Anyway, 'reversible' is just a stand-in here for direct claims of harm. It's likely imo that puberty blockers have some risk of stunting growth / reduce height, risk of osteoporisis, etc. But those are risks, with specific probabilities and intensities. I think that - if people were 'really trans' and really trans people transitioning was important to them, the risks of puberty blockers in trutrans would be worth it, although existing practices might not identify the trutrans kids. But 'trutrans' doesn't exist (i'd argue) so...

Anyway, 'reversible' is just a stand-in here for direct claims of harm.

From the way I saw it used, "reversible" is a stand-in for reversible. As in: parents are freaked out about giving their kids HRT because they know estrogen will make boobs grow, and testosterone will cause voice and body shape changes, so you offer them blockers, and claim they're reversible so they believe there's nothing being done here that can't be undone, complete with a cutesy analogy to a pause button in your music player