>**An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient.** Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, "I a boy" and has stuck with that belief. The family was shocked but now refers to the child as a boy and is watching for the first signs of puberty to begin treatment, his mother told The Associated Press. / >**Offering sex-changing treatment to kids younger than 18** raises ethical concerns, and their parents' motives need to be closely examined, **said Dr. Margaret Moon, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' bioethics committee.** / >**Some kids** may get a psychiatric diagnosis when they are just hugely uncomfortable with narrowly defined gender roles; or some may be gay and are coerced into treatment by **parents more comfortable with a sex change** than having a homosexual child, said Moon, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. / >These children sometimes resort to self-mutilation to try to change their anatomy; the other two journal reports note that some face verbal and physical abuse and are prone to stress, depression and suicide attempts. Spack said those problems typically disappear in **kids who've had treatment and are allowed to live as the opposite sex.** / >**At that point, the guidelines recommend puberty-blocking drugs until age 16, then lifelong sex-changing hormones with monitoring for potential health risks.** >The report details 97 girls and boys treated between 1998 and 2010; the youngest was 4 years old. Kids that young and their families get psychological counseling and are monitored until the first signs of puberty emerge, **usually around age 11 or 12. Then children are given puberty-blocking drugs**, in monthly $1,000 injections or implants imbedded in the arm. / From the very same paragraph you quoted and conspicuously cropped. >**His clinic has worked with local surgeons who've done breast removal surgery on girls at age 16**, but that surgery can be relatively minor, or avoided, if puberty is halted in time, he said Nobody talks about murder like this, retard. You're playing coy, selectively highlighting the things that confirm your insane bias, and making asinine false equivalencies. God, you really love the idea of chopping up kids. Freak.