So called "gender affirming care" for children is among the most horrific euphemisms of our time! If anyone uses this phrase in context with children, be immediately on high alert of charlatanry if not worse!
"Gender dysphoria" is another one of those horrific euphemisms of our time. It almost suggests a false euphoria. It is a false pretense of harmlessness: Oh it is just a dysphoria, nothing to worry about.
If adults choose to have this kind of treatment, be my guest. However if it is applied to minors, then it needs to be thoroughly and critically reviewed and evaluated.
Then there is the question of reversibility e.g. if an individual wants to reverse from transgender back to natal/biological gender. This is perhaps one of the least discussed issues. So far transgendering seems to be rather a one way street.
"In recent years, administering estrogen to males who identify as transgender women has become increasingly common, including among adolescents. Often paired with testosterone blockers, this treatment is marketed as part of “gender-affirming care”—a term used to describe medical interventions intended to “align” a person’s body with his or her “gender identity.” But as more young people pursue medical transition in the absence of long-term studies, concerns about safety, efficacy, and informed consent have grown more urgent.
A recent review article in Discover Mental Health, entitled “Emerging and accumulating safety signals for the use of estrogen among transgender women,” ...
One of the best-known risks associated with estrogen use in males is infertility. In their new review, Schwartz et al. note that while some patients retain limited sperm production, many do not—and they exhibit “testicular atrophy, hyalinization, and fibrosis,” meaning shrinkage, scarring, and tissue changes that may signal elevated cancer risk. ..."
From the abstract:
"Efforts to alleviate the psychological distress of gender dysphoria have included the use of exogenous estrogen (often with anti-androgens) to alter secondary sex characteristics of natal males. In response to the rapid increase in presenting cases among young people, extensive scrutiny has now been brought to bear on these medical interventions for minors, with ESCAP reporting “an urgent need for safeguarding clinical, scientific, and ethical standards.”
However, due to the lack of systematic outcome data, the associated risk–benefit profile is unknown.
Several recent systematic reviews have found the evidence of benefit to be of low or very low certainty, while some risks, such as infertility, have been long recognized.
This paper compiles several emerging and accumulating safety signals in the medical literature. These range from increased rates of previously associated adverse outcomes with long-term estrogen use (e.g., acute cardiovascular events) to associations of estrogen use with newly identified adverse outcomes.
Estrogen also induces changes in the brain, raising concerns for negative impacts on mood (e.g., depression) and cognition.
These safety signals indicate the need for further investigation and a thorough systematic search for others, which may now be more evident due to the increased number of young people receiving these treatments.
There is an urgent need for the evidence base to be improved with more studies, especially those with systematic long-term follow-up and those that can disentangle possible confounders, as well as systematic reviews to help interpret their reliability."
A New Paper Reveals Devastating Harms of Cross-Sex Hormones "Male use of estrogen is associated with a range of diseases and health complications."
