If research comes out that puberty blockers are too dangerous to be prescribed to transgender children, then the ethical alternative is not to make them wait un

If research comes out that puberty blockers are too dangerous to be prescribed to transgender children, then the ethical alternative is not to make them wait until adulthood, but to let them start hormone replacement therapy immediately. I think that's something a lot of people don't get. Trans people consistently describe going through puberty without access to hormones or blockers as traumatic. Traumatizing children is bad and should be avoided. The thing is, the effects of going on HRT are pretty close to the effects of natural puberty, so we can reasonably assume that a cisgender child going on HRT unnecessarily is about the same level of badness as a trans child not being able to get puberty blockers or hormones. The article says that 98% of kids who take hormone blockers go on to take HRT, and I've seen similar numbers elsewhere. Since you can't tell whether someone is in the 98% of true positives or 2% of false positives at the start, then you have to make the same decision for all of them, and it just doesn't make sense to sacrifice the 98% for the well-being of the 2%. This would be very bad for the 2%, of course; that's why doctors prescribe blockers in the first place. But if the best option isn't available, you have to go with the least bad option. (I suspect the ratio in this situation would be even better than 98:2, since real life isn't an abstract ethical dilemma. For example, many of these kids would be willing to go on blockers but not hormones, and they would likely be disproportionately in the 2% category, so they would avoid getting the wrong treatment.)