For a year and a half, GOP lawmakers have been stealthily adding amendements to government appropriations bills, which are key to funding major government departments, to ban any federal money being used for gender transition procedures. This will dramatically curtail trans people’s access to medical care — just like the Hyde Amendment restricted abortion access, write Io Dodds and Eric Garcia.
Removed by mod
Extremely rare side effects aside, what about all the kids whose lives you destroy by _not _ intervening? Do you know how many confused cis kids go on blockers, decide they want to stop and go on and live a cis life? It literally almost never happens.
Of the children accessing trans healthcare available to minors, the overwhelming majority are trans kids who do not detransition or regret anything they do to transition. The kid you are “protecting” is that “confused cis kid” who is vastly outnumbered by genuinely trans children who will become transgender adults. By withholding blockers (at the minimum), you are sacrificing the well being of the overwhelming users of blockers, genuinely trans children, for the sake of the wellbeing of an almost non existent subgroup of confused cis kids.
How many trans kids lives are worth sacrificing so that one cis kid might not accidentally do something totally reversible that might increase their risk of cancer the same amount as eating bacon?
When you put it all together like that and the outcome is still a desire to prevent access, one has to ask: maybe the point is to make the trans kids suffer? Maybe the point is to make it harder for them to blend in with cis people? Maybe the point is to not treat their illness in hopes they give up and conform or kill themselves?
Please, just listen to trans people’s experiences so you can understand what you’re actually talking about. You can’t just try to take away people’s medical treatment because you don’t understand why they need it.
As a probably-trans-but-still-questioning person, I can promise you that no one was “teaching” me to be uncomfortable with my gender when I was a kid.
(Also, it’s important to point out that a lot of what you’re complaining about is not real treatments that are done. No one does gender affirming surgery on kids. And puberty blockers have been safely used on cis kids for decades so unless you want to take them away from them too, it’s not about how you think they’re dangerous, it’s about hurting trans people)
Hormone therapy does increase risk of cancer, but puberty blockers do not as far as I’m aware. Kids take puberty blockers for many reasons, only one of which is to hold off on a gender decision. They are also used to pause early puberty or to prevent puberty when puberty would come with other adverse medical problems.
And the increase risk of suicide is worse if no choice is given to transgender youth. Most of the suicidal ideation is attributed to the intolerance and hate transgender people experience, which leads to mental health issues, substance abuse, self hate, etc. The issue therefore is not being transgender, but with societies lack of acceptance, which you are presently participating in.
Virtually no kids are undergoing surgical transition. Trans care for minors usually involves medication that puts their puberty on pause until they are old enough to decide whether they wish to pursue transition. It is reversible.
You know you can just say you hate trans people instead of dancing around it with bullshit. I didn’t get puberty blockers, which caused permanent damage to my body and mental health. I had to get expensive surgery I was fortunate enough to be able to get in order to fix some of that. You’re causing permanent damage to trans people by denying them a reversible medication out of fear that they may have negative side effects while ignoring the negative primary effects going through the wrong puberty causes.
Stop being so fucking selfishly cruel.
You’re so right but not the way you think.
“Won’t someone please think of the children” hysteria aside, this article is about adults.