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Puberty blockers recommended for transsexual teens

By Linda Geddes

10 December 2008

TRANSSEXUAL children as young as 12 should be given drugs to postpone puberty and make it easier for them to change sex at the age of 16 if they still want to. That’s the suggestion of controversial draft guidelines, the first of their kind, issued last week by the international Endocrine Society.

The guidelines state that transsexual children and young teens who have begun early puberty should be given puberty-blockers to avoid inevitable changes to their bodies, which they perceive as out of line with their true gender. In the worst cases, these changes can drive children to self-harm or…

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