The good news (for this boy) is that 13 days of hormone therapy are unlikely to cause any permanent changes. Infertility/sterility is usually only expected after years of HRT - and even then, often returns if HRT is ceased.
Ouchi said the boy, now 17, was released in April and will require surgery to treat the physical issues he developed as a result of the estrogen treatment.
...
The boy’s father said the hormone therapy has had a long-term effect on his son, who now scares easily and has become antisocial. “He’s like a different person. He just wants to be in his room, and he don’t come out for nothing, all day in his room,” the father said. “He was never like that.”
How could one possibly discern this from the effects of going through juvie in general. I'd certainly feel betrayed by society, regardless of what meds I was given.
Suicide rates among people who transition are generally correlated with minority stress [1,2], not transition itself: "The myth that transition leads to SITBs continues to be used to deny transgender health care access and legislative rights, despite a lack of empirical support for this position and repeated research debunking it." (SITB= suicidal thoughts and behaviors) [3]
1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6813817/
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/
3: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/trgh.2019.0009
What I am about to say is in no way a defense of the doctor or his actions. What percentage of parents would say this exact same thing about their teenage children? It is perfectly normal behavior and I'm not sure there is anything to link it to the unnecessary hormones forced on the unfortunate kid.
> 13 days of hormone therapy are unlikely to cause sterility.
Yes, it's possible he won't end up sterilized by this. However:
The breast growth triggered in men by medical doses of estrogen is not reversible and requires surgery to correct. There will be social ramifications for life. There may be other (non-virility) physical ramifications for life.
Perhaps he was already overweight, high fat percentage (which results in high e2 in males) and some gynecomastia already?
Further I would be willing to bet that he was swallowing all 2mg at once and not taking the pills sublingually or buccally split across the day.
It is up to the lawyers to decide and maybe he had better breast development than any trans woman I know, but everything in my experience tells me that noticeable gynecomastia takes longer than 13 days on e2.
I actually had blood drawn a couple of weeks ago to check for this very thing. I’m male, and while my testosterone levels are in the median range, my estrogen levels are very high relatively speaking. I’m operating under the assumption that it’s caused by recent weight gain - thanks, quarantine - so I’m working to lose that weight and will check it again.
Interestingly, there don’t seem to be many accepted options for reducing estrogen levels. My PCP suggested broccoli seed extract, but made it clear that it wasn’t a well-supported or accepted treatment. The most reliable treatment is a change of lifestyle.
There has been unfortunately few studies done on transgender people or on young people. (I welcome any links to studies you have!)