That was disturbing news to Angelica Jadunandan, who moved to New York from Florida with her two young daughters three years ago. Her older daughter, who is eight, is transgender, and Angelica wanted to move them to a safe blue state—somewhere her family’s medical care would not be called into question. New York is a self-declared “sanctuary state” for trans people. It seemed like a good option.
If a cis child is able to begin puberty without people calling into question whether the child is mature enough to make such a life altering decision, there’s no reason a trans child should be unable to begin puberty blockers or HRT at the age they’d typically begin puberty regardless.
Choosing not to allow trans children to take necessary medical steps to transition is not a neutral choice. The wrong puberty can irreversibly damage your body in ways that are impossible or very expensive to fix, and the torture of seeing that happen to yourself and be unable to prevent it can’t be overstated.
No 8 year old is starting HRT, because they aren’t at the age to begin puberty. If a child is insistent in their gender idenity being incongruous with the puberty they will undergo long term, there is no reason to prevent them accessing HRT at the correct age, and if there is any doubt, the neutral option to pause unwanted changes in the interim is puberty blockers.
Gender confirmation surgeries are very uncommon for minors, and typically only happen to those who have already undergone the wrong puberty and have developed unwanted secondary sex characteristics (typically just top surgery for trans mascs). Breast reduction surgery for cis boys is the vast majority of gender confirmation surgery on minors, and among trans minors specifically the rate of gender affirming surgery is around 0.0021% for those 15-17, 0.0001% for those 13-14, and 0 for 12 and under. And the best way to reduce this number is by letting trans teens access puberty blockers and HRT.
Edit: Also there have 1000% been trans minors who started HRT as a minor and are now trans adults who are still on HRT. The rate of desisting for minors who identify as trans is like ~2%, and most of those who do do so by age 10 (eg before any HRT or gender affirming care outside of social transition). [source]