Doctors Work to Make Puberty Easier for Trans Kids

Updated | When Tai Jordan was a child, he would visit the local swimming pool and puzzle over why there were boys who splashed about without their shirts on, while he wore a bathing suit that covered most of his body. And when he thought about conventional weddings, he didn’t understand what it meant to be a conventional bride or groom.

“I’ve never really identified with the body I was born in,” says Jordan, an 18-year-old student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. “The way I decided to carry myself, the way I acted, was always more masculine.”

Jordan initially identified as a gay young woman in 2013, but even after coming out about his sexual orientation, he still didn’t feel “complete.” He felt confused about the language used to describe what he was feeling. Jordan became an avid triathlete and threw himself into sports, which led him to an epiphany. During a soccer competition in his junior year of high school, he strained his quad muscles. When doctors performed an MRI of his lower body to diagnose the injury, they spotted something else much more serious. Next to Jordan’s ovaries was a rare type of benign tumors, known as teratomas. Before surgery, the doctors discussed the possibility of having to remove his ovaries depending on pathology or what they found. Thankfully,  they never had to. Jordan