sex hormones affect much more than how you look. the human endocrine system is one of the most intricate, delicate, and consequential biological systems in nature, and yet tampering with its healthy function is treated as a cosmetic procedure.

people who become experts in medical science make an (often broken) contract that they will carry the burden of learning extremely complex information and continue to update themselves on new revelations, so that you dont have to, and can trust your body is treated with reverence

nowhere more clearly is this contract broken when cross sex hormones are considered a "right", something that you must have "access" to if you so chose. HRT is *not* a cosmetic procedure, it is a medical one, and one that breaches the foundational ideas of medical ethics at that.

the most foundational idea of medical ethics is that a practitioner is to do no harm. they are to operate with benevolence and the goal of returning a sick body, a diseased or injured system, to a healthy state. cross sex HRT does the exact opposite.

this is not a judgement but a fact. it is a fact that to rearrange the makeup of sex hormones within a human body is to transition that persons endocrine system from a healthy state to a diseased state. that endocrine system which is so intricate, delicate, and consequential.

acknowledging this fact is the core thorn in the ass of the ethical dilemma surrounding medical transition. does a medical practitioners responsibility to protect the healthy function of a patients body ever subside to the patients belief that the risk is worth it?

is it ethical to trust that patients assessment considering it is highly, highly unlikely that patient has put in the necessary years of study to be up to speed with the current knowledge about the endocrine system they are planning to disrupt?

can a person consent to something when they literally do not know what they are consenting to because they do not have the necessary knowledge of how it will affect their body, and it may be likely that if they *did* fully understand endocrinology they would chose differently?