I've wanted to say, for a little while, as someone who didn't grow up around awareness and resources - where you saw something sudden and terrifying here (and as a parent, that absolutely makes sense!), I, as a child with a slightly different story in the end - would have seen a lifeline.

Stepping back from the abruptness of it all, that moment would not have led to an immediate prescription, but rather, a LOT of conversations.

Had I been in that position in 2004 or 2005, as a little 'girl' in Texas, I can only imagine the incredible wave of hope and relief I would have felt, to learn that what I had no words for at the time was actually possible.

And then - very slowly, very deliberately, we'd take it one step at a time from there. Maybe I wouldn't have almost starved to death in 2006, 2007, 2012, 2016 if I had a pediatrician visit like that one day. (As dark as it sounds, admittedly, my teenage mind went EXACTLY to that place where delayed puberty was 'maybe a good thing.' )

Maybe other trans kids, with a different story than Nico's, could have likewise latched onto that tiny conversation starter if their doctor said the words aloud. For some, like me, it would have been the first time EVER hearing them. But the story would not have ended there - no decent doctor would let it end there, of course.

The thought of change is scary, but please know that in some cases, my own in another era included, discomfort for a parent would be a moment in time that could be worth years and years of saved suffering.