Trans kids and whether or not parents should give them puberty blockers is a subject constantly debated in the news. My own insight given my disorder and my inability to make oestrogen and testosterone gives me a unique perspective on the issue that I hope will clarify this issue for people.

Somewhere between genders

I was born with a rare congenital malformation of the brain, which resulted in a variety of medical complications, including the inability to make oestrogen and testosterone. I identify as non-binary or agender. For those who aren’t aware of that means, for me, it simply means that I don’t identify as “male” or for “female”, and my pronoun is “they”.

When I was bridging 12 years of age, there was discussion about me starting hormonal birth control for the purposes of giving me oestrogen I wasn’t making. My endocrinologist, who had diagnosed me with my disorder when I was only an infant had been monitoring my body every six months for signs of oncoming puberty. None came.

A combination of my lack of hormones and economic status meant I developed hair that was thin and best dealt with when cut short and had a fashion sense my peers didn’t much appreciate. Bullying against me was almost always based around my gender expression and then, when I got old, what that said about my sexuality. My first name, which I no longer go by because bullying has soured it, was turned into a pun about how I failed at femininity.

Disability and non-binary identities

Personally, I saw myself as neutral. Yes, I didn’t much like dresses, but I loved playing with dolls. Yes, I watched Star Trek, but I also wanted to play the Mom when my sister and I played House. I was never uncomfortable with what I truly enjoyed or liked, but I was uncomfortable with the treatment people gave me because of how I looked. I remember being about 10 and a 5 year old walking up to me and asking me if I was a boy or a girl. I cried and ran home.

I felt enormous pressure to be “normal”, not only because of my disability, but because of how obvious it was to everyone that I wasn’t “normal”. While I comfortably identify as non-binary now, if you spoke to a younger version of me, I would have insisted I was a girl, through and through.

And if I had been given a choice to not take any oestrogen, to halt my puberty until I was able to come to terms with my gender identity, I know for a fact I wouldn’t have taken it. I wanted oestrogen, not because I identified with being female, but because it was a marker of being normal, being grown up, and being just like everyone else.

A case of cis regret

Today, I regret taking oestrogen, but I no longer have the choice to stop taking it, lest I develop osteoporosis. Because of oestrogen, I’ve developed characteristics which gave me what I wished for when I was a child: no one asks me if I’m a girl or a boy.

My chest is uncomfortable and I wear a binder most of the time. Not because I hate them; I think they’re great. I just don’t want them on myself. They don’t feel like me. And, despite identifying as non-binary, I’m still hesitant about being abnormal. I’ve been trying to get a massive reduction for years now, and have been discharged from the GIC because of my feminine name.

I have hips, facial characteristics, and other things that gender me, things I wouldn’t have developed if I never took oestrogen. I’m not angry with my doctors, my parents, or anyone else for giving me it. As I said, if given the option I would have chosen to be “normal”, because I was terrified of being different.

Transgender identity as a ‘phase’

This is why I truly feel the suggestion that transgender kids are going “through a phase” and that putting them on something to halt their puberty is giving into some fancying, childish whim is completely and utterly ridiculous and anyone who believes that every transgender kid is going through some sort of phase must’ve forgotten what grade school is like.

Being different is not fun, as a child. Being picked on, being the object of ridicule, being made into a freak…. these are things that transgender children can and do understand. The decision to not give them puberty blockers for the sake of sparing them from bullying or harassment is laughable.

I can tell you, as someone who chose the “right” option, it not only didn’t stop me from gender-based bullying, it didn’t stop anything from hurting, it didn’t protect me from anything. If it is something these children change their minds about, hormones can be given later.

I took oestrogen from the ages of 12 to 14 then from 16 and currently. I’m not a medical professional and I can’t judge every single trans kid’s experience, life, or individual situation. But the thought that these kids are just acting out and that their pleas should be ignored is completely and utterly out of touch with my experience.

Most people want to be “normal”, regardless of how not “normal” they are and despite how the want of being “normal” causes so much destruction in their lives. It took me a long time to be comfortable with calling myself non-binary. Transgender kids who are open about who they are have an incredible amount of bravery. An amount of bravery I deeply wish that I had at that age.

Once these changes happen from puberty, there’s no going back. That’s it. I made my choice and now, thanks to it, I have an expensive and honestly scary surgery to look forward to, if I can even get it.

I wasn’t saved from pain for making the “right” choice based on my birth assignment. Believe me when I say, children have every reason to adhere to gender norms. The ones that are brave enough to be who they are shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed.

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