[tater]

There are 4 types of intersex if I remember correctly (I read the stuff to my wife on a long distance drive when she was studying for her Urology boards). I have a reasonable understanding of it. It is not just insensitivity to testosterone. There are both hormonal, and genetic causes for the various types. My wife is in the "wait for them to grow up" camp, medically, though she doesn't see many peds patients (there are peds urologists at the U who see more, and she doesn't like to treat patients as guinea pigs).

Some might well be better served with early medical treatment, OTOH, if you were surgically made a girl because you had intersex with micropenis, etc, and later you would prefer to be male, you are screwed. Hence delay as the best option in most cases—the most well-meaning parents are not the person with the disorder, and can make a mistake.

A quick look at wiki shows there are studies using MRIs on transgenders, and that the physical brain difference work was equivocal since they didn't check for hormone use in subjects. In terms of other mental illness, you can treat depression, etc, empirically, and it will get better. That is a sort of physical test. If it were possible to treat transgenders with a drug such that the aberrant feelings went away... you'd likely have people complaining that it was not aberrant and should not be treated.

BTW, schizophrenia has no really successful treatment. Drugs work well for some, for some period of time, but it's pretty much a crap shoot, and the side effects are terrible. It's only a lucky few who can have it as a treatable, chronic disorder, sadly (my brother was schizophrenic, I know a little about that, too).

Bottom line is that I'm fine with delaying treatment until they are adults, and if they can temporize it by delaying puberty without adverse effects, that's fine as well. It's personal enough that the patient should decide, not the parents if at all possible.