Why would we do this when a high percentage of children with gender dysphoria become comfortable with their bodies by the time they reach adulthood? Why would we shut down seeking further understanding to adopt only one approach? Why would we not seek to understand how children might be able to flourish in the bodies that they have? Why would we want to push them in anyway towards irreversible sterilization? There are many other forms of body dysphoria (such as anorexia) but gender dysphoria is the only one where the dysphoria is unquenstionaly accommodated, and this only because of certain philosophical assumptions about gender that have been accepted without questioning them.
I include this from the following article: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20160819_TNA50SexualityandGender.pdf
As we have seen above in the overview of the neurobiological and genetic research on the origins of gender identity, there is little evidence that the phenomenon of transgender identity has a biological basis. There is also little evidence that gender identity issues have a high rate of persistence in children. According to the DSM-5, “In natal [biological] males, persistence [of gender dysphoria] has ranged from 2.2% to 30%. In natal females, persistence has ranged from 12% to 50%.”67 Scientific data on persistence of gender dysphoria remains sparse due to the very low prevalence of the disorder in the general population, but the wide range of findings in the literature suggests that there is still much that we do not know about why gender dysphoria persists or desists in children. As the DSM-5 entry goes on to note, “It is unclear if children ‘encouraged’ or supported to live socially in the desired gender will show higher rates of persistence, since such children have not yet been followed longitudinally in a systematic manner.”68 There is a clear need for more research in these areas, and for parents and therapists to acknowledge the great uncertainty regarding how to interpret the behavior of these children.
With the uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis of and prognosis for gender dysphoria in children, therapeutic decisions are particularly complex and difficult. Therapeutic interventions for children must take into account the probability that the children may outgrow cross-gender identification. University of Toronto researcher and therapist Kenneth Zucker believes that family and peer dynamics can play a significant role in the development and persistence of gender-nonconforming behavior, writing that: "it is important to consider both predisposing and perpetuating factors that might inform a clinical formulation and the development of a therapeutic plan: the role of temperament, parental reinforcement of cross-gender behavior during the sensitive period of gender identity formation, family dynamics, parental psychopathology, peer relation- ships and the multiple meanings that might underlie the child’s fantasy of becoming a member of the opposite sex."69
Zucker worked for years with children experiencing feelings of gender incongruence, offering psychosocial treatments to help them embrace the gender corresponding with their biological sex—for instance, talk therapy, parent-arranged play dates with same-sex peers, therapy for cooccurring psychopathological issues such as autism spectrum disorder, and parent counseling.70
In a follow-up study by Zucker and colleagues of children treated by them over the course of thirty years at the Center for Mental Health and Addiction in Toronto, they found that gender identity disorder persisted in only 3 of the 25 girls they had treated.71 (Zucker’s clinic was closed by the Canadian government in 2015.72)