French parliamentarians are considering a text aimed at regulating the gender transitions of minors. This includes strict control of puberty blockers.
This Tuesday, the Senate examines a text carried by Senator LR Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio. It focuses in particular on the ban on minors’ access to hormonal treatments as well as gender reassignment surgery. Doctors who prescribe cross-hormones or carry out such surgeries would face a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine of 30,000 euros and a ten-year ban on practicing.
Strict control of prescriptions for “puberty blockers” is also envisaged. These are synthetic hormones, making it possible to suspend the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts, voice, hair, etc. If the adolescent stops the treatment, pubertal development resumes its natural course. The effects are therefore not irreversible. This allows young people “to explore their gender identity without experiencing the changes linked to puberty that they might experience badly,” explains Annelou de Vries, Dutch psychiatrist, as reported France 3. Today, puberty blockers are available to patients who are in Tanner stage 2 of puberty, often around age 12.
In the proposed law, prescriptions for puberty blockers would only become permitted within a specific framework in “multidisciplinary reference centers” and after medical follow-up of at least two years. Initially, the bill aimed to ban them but it was quickly relaxed. “A growing number of children and adolescents are wondering about their sexual identity. We must ask ourselves the right questions, so as not to lead certain children too early into things that are often irreversible,” explained the author of the bill to the AFP.
A risky proposition?
This text is not unanimous and is considered “transphobic” on the left. “This text is based on the principle that the transition is a problem, a danger, and that to dissuade people from transitioning, it is enough to ban everything,” warned socialist Laurence Rossignol, as reported The world. Claire Hédon, rights defender, estimated that this proposal could “undermine the rights and best interests of children”, even mentioning the risk of suicide. For Maryse Rizza, president of the Grandir Trans association, puberty blockers have, in fact, “saved her son’s life”. The latter had increased his suicide attempts when his period arrived.
One of the problems raised is also that if the situation was identified shortly before puberty and you have to wait two years to possibly access the blockers, it will already be too late. For LGBT rights associations, it is a real “step back in time”.