I’m sure you all remember Avery Jackson, the “trans girl” who, at 9, was on the cover of National Geographic. Avery was given the gold standard in gender affirming care: he was chemically castrated and sterilized with Lupron - a medication usually prescribed to castrate sex offenders, but used on trans-identifying boys to prevent the onset of puberty. Now, at age 17, Avery has come out as “nonbinary.” He also identifies as asexual, meaning that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction. This is undoubtedly the result of the Lupron which stopped him from going through puberty. The president of WPATH, Dr, “Marci” Bowers, has said on camera that so-called “puberty blockers” chemically castrate boys who take them, leaving them incapable of arousal or orgasm as adults. For adult sex offenders, the process is reversible. For boys like Avery, the effects are permanent. He will never feel sexual attraction, or any of the experiences that accompany it. Avery is also sterile; he can never father a child, and his own childhood was spent in the national spotlight. The chemical castration he endured has also stunted his growth and mental development in irreversible ways. Parts of his body were prevented from developing fully, and so was his mind. His childhood and his normalcy were stolen from him, and he has said that transitioning “ruined [his] life.” It is high time that we stop pretending that children can make an informed decision to transition or take blockers, even if their doctors are honest about the risks and consequences — which most are not. Blockers are not reversible: the intellectual deficits and physical underdevelopment that Lupron causes will never repair themselves, and neither will the damage done to the child victim’s emotional intelligence and maturity. This will, of course, make it easier to push them into transitioning; that is, to sell them hormones and provide surgical alterations. This is the medication that will be used to experiment on hundreds of children as young as 11 in a newly-announced clinical trial in the UK. 220 children will be involved in this study, even though the damage that “puberty blockers” cause to the sexual function and intellectual capacity of children has been well-documented, and the UK is just one country that has banned their use. The trial is being carried out anyway, according to Dr. Hilary Cass, because “[as] there are clinicians, children and families who believe passionately in the beneficial effects [of puberty blockers], a trial was the only way forward to make sense of this." In other words, the demands of children, transhausen parents, and the clinicians who profit from pushing this drug are being allowed to overrule clear and objective evidence that it is harmful to the children who take it.