What do you think, if a little kid wants to be a different gender, should they start hormone therapy right away? I was a tomboy as a girl and wanted to be a boy, but it was a passing phase. I grew up to be a sexually normal adult woman who doesn't like make up, likes gender neutral clothes, and is totally satisfied with being a woman.
Last year, the pediatric endocrinologist started a new clinic at Children's Hospital Boston; it is one of a few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies. Working on a model borrowed from Dutch researchers, Spack uses drugs to delay the first stirrings of youngsters' puberty, granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female. The effects of these puberty-blocking drugs are reversible; that is, patients can later change their minds. Unfortunately, this is not the case with hormones. Therefore, Spack prescribes estrogen and testosterone to only a few teenagers - after months of consultation with the patient, his or her caregivers, and psychiatrists. When kids take this step, they are rewriting their own future: The hormones have a powerful, pervasive effect, changing their height, breast development, and the pitch of their voices
