One of the side effects of the right wing's objections to absolutely anything having to do with sexuality or reproduction is its desire to avoid puberty blockers in the fear that transexual children will use them.

This country has an epidemic of early puberty, and girls' bodies and minds are incapable of dealing with those changes both physically and emotionally. Whether it's due to hormones and processing in food or the obesity epidemic, we should not allow our children to live in bodies for which they are unprepared.

I'm a retired elementary teacher. I had a petite first-grade student who was suffering from early puberty. Theoretically, she could be sexually assaulted and have given birth at age seven. Did I mention that this child was tiny? Those of us who are blessed with common sense and are free of harmful religious ideology need to do everything we can to counteract the damage that these fanatics do.