The authors advocate the use of puberty blocking LHRH analogues in adolescents with a gender identity disorder "after the individual’s psychosexual development is complete", at the earliest. This is not consistent with the published treatment recommendations of others and does not follow the recommendations of the North American Endocrine Society—to be released for publication shortly—which recommends suppressing puberty once genital development has reached Tanner stage 2-3, and which deems that treatment with hormones of the opposite sex is indicated from age 16.
As soon as a diagnosis of transsexualism has been made by child and adolescent psychiatrists, we think that it is not acceptable to withhold hormone therapy from the affected patients and thereby practically force them to experience the irreversible physical changes that puberty visits on their bodies.
References
- 1.Hembree WC, Cohen-Kettenis P, Delamarre HA, Gooren LJ, Meyer WJ, Spack NP, Tangpricha V, Montori VM. Endocrine treatment of transsexual persons: an endocrine society clinical practice guideline developed by a task force. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Korte A, Goecker D, Krude H, et al. Gender identity disorders in childhood and adolescence—currently debated concepts and treatment strategies. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2008;105(48):834–841. doi: 10.3238/arztebl.2008.0834. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]