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The protocols around children with DSDs, where recognised at birth or in childhood, have been updated in the past 20 years at minimum towards not intervening surgically until and unless the subject wishes it.

Precocious puberty is treated with puberty blockers until an appropriate age for puberty to start, at which point they are withdrawn to let normal puberty occur. That is different from treating children not suffering precocious puberty at the normal pubertal age.

Gynecomastia can be socially embarrassing, but is not a condition that untreated leads to adverse physical outcomes in itself.

You fail to distinguish between valid medical procedures (often optional in the case of people with DSDs; the term "intersex" dates back to the point where DSDs were poorly understood, and can be seen by people with those conditions view it as offensive; also optional for gynecomastia) and those with a weak evidence base.

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Charles Arthur
Charles Arthur

Written by Charles Arthur

Tech journalist; author of “Social Warming: how social media polarises us all” and two others. The Guardian’s Technology editor 2005–14. Speaker, moderator.

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