In 2007, pillowangel.org, a support forum documenting the life of Ashley X, received over two million hits after endocrinologist Dr. Daniel F. Gunther explained on CNN the growth attenuation treatment he had administered to Ashley X the previous year. In response to a desperate request from her parents, Ashley X, then a six-year-old severely disabled
child from Seattle, Washington, was given high-dose estrogen, a complete hysterectomy, and a breast-bud mastectomy to prevent her transition to embodied adulthood. Parents and doctors defended the decision to arrest Ashley X’s development and halt her physical growth, arguing that it would ease her transfer during caregiving, prevent the discomfort of big breasts and the messiness of menstruation, and shield her from abuse. It was felt that the interventions would match Ashley X’s body to her mind, which experts considered to be at the level of a six-month-old, and halt her physical development, offering more congruency between her “childlike” mind and her body.

Rice, C. (2018). The spectacle of the child woman: Troubling girls and the science of early puberty. Feminist Studies, 44(3), 535–566. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.44.3.0535