Originally Posted by Xurtio

So you understand why hormone therapy is so helpful if it's done before puberty? A half finished genetic expression routine has some conflicting attributes to it. Cis males and females have some different signaling pathways at work in their bodies from each other - you can't just mix and match them without consequences, but nature's not perfect, and nature doesn't care about human suffering. So we have medicine.

Also, ideally, the child is making the decision with the help and support of their parents and a counselor that specializes in determining if it's in the child's best interest or not. If they don't have support from their family, they often try to get the hormones on their own as a teenager.