Puberty blockers are not the easy fix trans-accepting parents want them to be

When I was 11-years-old, two movies that are famous in Black cinema history were released: Boomerang and Mo’ Money. Halle Berry was in both of these movies, and although I was probably too young to be watching them, I did, and what stood out to me was Halle Berry’s haircut. I wanted that haircut so bad. I begged my mom relentlessly to let me get that haircut but I got the same answer: no.

My mother knew that the cut would need more effort to maintain than I, as a child, was willing or able to put in. As a working mother with two children in extracurricular activities, she didn't have the time to schedule and deliver me to additional beauty shop appointments every couple of weeks. As a swimmer who had practice at least four-days-a-week, the washing and blow drying and curling every single day after school and practice was not something that I, a child, could do.

I wasn't allowed to get my Halle Berry haircut until I was 16, and, still a swimmer, I was only able to maintain it for maybe three months before it went back into a ponytail as it grew back. Basically, everything my mom predicted back when I was 11.

Keira Bell, a 23-year-old woman in the United Kingdom, spoke at the recent Can I Get A Witness teleconference where women from all parts of the world talked about their experiences navigating the current "gender over sex mentality" that is spreading like wildfire.

At 16, Keira thought she wanted to transition to male, and doctors, after 3 one-hour session, prescribed her puberty blockers. Puberty blockers are an early step for starting the transition of children to a different sex. They delay things like the growth of female breasts, menstruation, and facial hair in males.

Of course, Keira took the puberty blockers. After that, came the testosterone, and in 2017, a full mastectomy.

The medical profession still has no definitive answer on how these puberty blockers psychologically or developmentally (brain) affect children. Yet, they still allow children to take them based on what these children say they want to do.

Keira has stopped taking hormones and is currently suing the National Health Service.

While medical professionals who take an oath to "do no harm" certainly have a responsibility to do due diligence before they start facilitating the whims of children, parents are more to blame.

Social media would have us believe that parents who go along with the butchering of their children's bodies—and psyches— are commendable beacons whose tolerance and love for their children should be an example for parents everywhere; especially those transphobic hateful parents who are putting their own selfish desires for normalcy ahead of their child’s happiness.

Social justice warriors and "viral" culture wants us to believe that doing whatever your child wants you to do or get behind is the way to go. The idea is perpetrated that it's "abusive" to deny them their heart's desire, even if their desire is to let a physician relieve them of important body parts. Yet, we never hear about these "supportive" parents when things go wrong.

Things wen very wrong for transgender icon "Jazz," who has been heralded as a beacon for transgender youth, with a TLC reality tv show, and a book that is on the required reading list for many LGBT+ educational programs. The show, "I Am Jazz," tracks the story of an adolescent boy who is castrated as part of a transition to female and the surgery outcome doesn't go as planned. As a result of the puberty blockers, Jazz did not have enough genital tissue to successfully perform the operation, and many doctors had turned her down as a patient.

Jazz has been reported to be suffering from mental health issues as well, with one source close to the teen saying "She’s not happy. Jazz has told friends that she has things anyone in her position would want: money, the perfect female body. But she's just not happy. Somewhere down the line she’s lost herself."

Parents aren't only supposed to provide love, but guidance as well. Somewhere in that guidance, we would hope, is wisdom. Any parent who fails to see the inherent lack of wisdom in artificially pausing the natural development of a growing child because they can't or don't want to explore the mental and emotional reasons behind their child believing that instead of perhaps being homosexual or merely having different tastes in clothing or appearance, they were born in the wrong body should at the least have their own fitness to parent evaluated.

By not even doing the basics, like trying to understand what your child is really saying when they ask to undergo the gender reassignment process, investigating whether there are outside forces causing them to believe they need a sex change, or getting them professional help for whatever mental or emotional upheaval that is going on in their mind, parents who allow this are just as abusive as the ones who physically abuse or neglect their children. Abuse by any other name is still abuse.

A trans person may say that my example about the haircut is apples and oranges. On second thought, they may be right. Hair can grow back. Breasts and penises cannot.