People are reading it with conventional meaning. Chu ought to understand that with a platform like that, rampant exaggeration leaving us to guess what she really means is not called for. She should say what she means, so I take her at her word: when she says "regardless" she does in fact mean that these are not criteria that have any legitimate place in gatekeeping which interventions are appropriate.

Let's quote her in detail, with a little more context: "We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex. It does not matter where this desire comes from. [...] We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history. This may strike you as a vertiginous task. The good news is that millions of people already believe it." (Emphasis hers (upright text).)

Either she's doing an astoundingly bad job conveying a nuanced position (despite her occasionally recondite language) as a specialist on a highly charged topic that obviously calls for nuance if you have it--which argues that the NY Intelligencer should have gotten a competent spokesperson to write their article, not this one; or her position is actually not particularly nuanced, but rather she taking a firm stand that is very clearly where she says she it is: you don't have to read anything into it, you just have to read it.

Does Chu literally mean that if a seven year old is being peer-pressured and bullied into getting a sex change (but the peer pressure and bullying has succeeded and the target genuinely, albeit transiently and without understanding the consequences, wishes for the change), that our position should be that that seven year old should get surgery (rather than, say, investigating and noticing the unhealthy social dynamic and then getting out of it and waiting to see how the child's outlook might change)? I am pretty sure that's not her position. I certainly hope not.

But by only managing to convey a position that is consistent with an affirmative answer to the above, Chu is presenting as an extremist on the issue. And thus it's eminently fair to wish for more circumspect voices to be granted center stage.

This isn't the only area where Chu has chosen to convey an extreme message. She also says things like, "But the most insidious source of the anti-trans movement in this country is, quite simply, liberals." (If you can find only scorn for both conservative and liberal positions, you might be a little extreme!) And "if children are too young to consent to puberty blockers, then they are definitely too young to consent to puberty, which is a drastic biological upheaval in its own right". (Most people tend to view natural processes differently than interventions, whether this is in the guise of positive vs negative rights, the trolley problem, etc. etc.--to even make this argument puts one on the fringes of perspectives philosophically.) And "What does this freedom look like in practice? Let anyone change their sex. Let anyone change their gender. Let anyone change their sex again.". (Most people seem to view sex as a little more immutable than that, rather than accepting that we'll try to toggle sex as if one is dying one's hair.)

(Chu's apparent concern for the disenfranchisement of children also appears somewhat disingenuous, given that she doesn't argue for far more straightforward and widespread enfranchisement of children, such as the right to live with whom they wish, the right to choose their own school, the right to vote, etc. etc..)

Even if Chu is right, the fact that she just states things like this without adding, "And I know this sounds out there, but let's think about this carefully and figure out how to mitigate possible problems and/or evaluate whether a supposed problem really is one," marks her stance as extreme as delivered.

Regarding the hot flashes, you state, and I concur, that "her doctor might order labs to confirm her hormone levels". That is standard. But this completely ruins the analogy you're seeking, because "checking for and if necessary restoring normal hormone levels that you presumably have already had" is not the same as "switching to hormone levels normal for the opposite sex, which you have never had". HRT in menopause is conceived of as a restorative, not a transformative treatment. (And, indeed, is coming under scrutiny for us having not checked carefully enough to what extent it is actually transformative or potentially risky.) Restorative medicine is far more widely accepted than transformative medicine. For example, doctors might prescribe anabolic steroids to someone to combat muscular wasting, but not so that they could win Mr/Ms Universe. Surgery to fix cleft lip is covered as basic health care; to create one is elective cosmetic surgery if you could even find a surgeon who would do it. Nurses might administer ever greater doses of opioid painkillers to people with terminal illness, until the actual cause of death is the painkiller (rather than a few days or weeks of intense agony, followed by death from the disease); but they might not do the same for a teenager who is despondent that their crush dumped them and is in hospital following a failed suicide attempt.

The hippocratic oath might be ill-conceived--you or Chu could argue that--but implicit in "do no harm" is that you do due diligence to assess whether you're doing harm. This includes an awareness that people can make mistakes.