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Nautilus said:

Extreme?The person is going to make a decision that will basically mutilate his body.Not only that, but they will undergo an intense hormone terapy(assuming thats how its called), which regulates multiples parts of your body, and that can even influence your personality and how you feel.

Honestly, this kind of decision is even more important on how old you should be to drive a car for example.Isnt the reason why it is adopted the age 18 for people to start driving?(In most countries anyway)Not only it is for to wait for the body to better develop things like reflex, but also for the one that is about to learn to drive to understand its consequences.Im not saying that 18 is the ideal age for one to make such a decision, but its a good age, for most of humankind, in which someone has already develop its faculties enough so that he understands the consequences of the choices that he makes, wether that be for the dangers of driving a car, if murder is right or wrong, or if changing your whole body in a one way procedure is really what they want.

There are obvious exceptions to the rules.People that are morte mature than others, smart than others and all that.But when you make rules, you make them so that they will cover most of the situations.It sucks for when you are the exception, but life isnt fair and nor is the world.

@AngryLittleAlchemist sorry I was meant to reply to you, but your post didnt appear for some reason.

Ok, we mutilate the bodies of boys all the time without their consent already, so I'm not really sure why you'd use a buzzword to make it sound worse than it is. It's a decision they are making. I'm not even saying that waiting is bad, but 18 is pretty far into a persons life and if they haven't started on hormone blockers they could already have their mind irreparably damaged by not being able to start the transition process. Making it too early may be controversial, but the answer isn't to use a faulty argument like brain development when it's convenient for you. The average person should already know how they identify quite a bit before 18. The longer you wait the worse the damage to the person. The answer is probably a middle ground and not either extreme.

I'm not sure what the driving age is for most countries but I'm also not sure why I'd care, because my entire point is that the brain doesn't stop developing till 25 and that only caring about brain development when it's convenient for your point is disingenuous. Driving in the U.S. is probably different state by state but at least where I live you get a permit at 15 and you can drive with a license by 16 - and supposedly in the U.K. it tends to be something similar, where you can drive with a permit at 15 and 9 months and you can get a license by 17.

You could arbitrarily pick any number under 25 and argue the brain hasn't developed enough to make decisions. In fact the murder thing is a great example - everyone knows if murder is right or wrong before 18. That's why people who are under that age but still pretty far into their life are often judged as if they were adults. People already alter their brain chemistry all the time anyways - things such as overeating often change your habits. 

"Im not saying that 18 is the ideal age for one to make such a decision"

"but its a good age, for most of humankind,"

Ok then you ARE saying it's the ideal age.