Clinically, the first time any medical intervention can be made is with the onset of puberty. In puberty, a child’s body starts to produce sex hormones in the amounts required to trigger the development of secondary sex characteristics that typically distinguish cis men and women. While biological puberty is primarily about the ability to reproduce, socially it fixes how a person’s gender is perceived. Unsurprisingly, for children with acute gender dysphoria that has been alleviated by social transition in childhood, the onset of puberty can cause intense distress.
