Twenty-six U.S. states have banned certain medical interventions for children with gender dysphoria. In a free country, the barrier for straight up banning a medical intervention needs to be very high. The evidence needs to be overwhelming that such interventions are bad—that they do far more harm than good. That is not the case for puberty suppressing drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or even surgery. Such bans are an insult to liberty and should be removed.
If a doctor, parent, and child, all agree that a particular medical intervention is the best solution for their problem, then who the Hell is the government to stop them? Who the Hell are you to stop them? It doesn’t matter how you feel about transgenders, unless such interventions are clearly net bad for patients to the point where no reasonable person would perform them, they should not be banned.
There are lots of studies on transgender interventions, and there is some evidence that puberty suppression, hormones, and/or surgery help children and adolescents with their gender dysphoria, their quality of life, depression, and even lessens their chance of suicide. Unfortunately, that evidence is mixed and the studies are far from conclusive. Researchers on both sides seem biased and exaggerate the quality of evidence for their positions while undervaluing the evidence in favor of other positions.
The evidence is mixed enough that doctors and parents need to approach such decisions with a heavy dose of caution. The burden of evidence for stopping, and especially changing, a child’s natural puberty needs to fall on the intervention. If doctors are negligently transitioning kids who should not be transitioned, then those doctors should be charged and sued under normal medical malpractice or negligence laws. We don’t need to ban procedures to enforce basic medical law.
I strongly encourage parents and medical professionals to be careful about transitioning children, and for parents to get second opinions from different-thinking doctors. The evidence in favor of such interventions is quite modest, and it’s hard to tell which children are more likely to benefit from them. Nevertheless, such decisions should be in the hands of the parents, doctors, and the children, not the government. We are not truly a free country if medical interventions can be banned on such weak justifications.
What the Science on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Kids Really Shows Heather Boerner. 2022 5 12. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-the-science-on-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-kids-really-shows Mastectomy John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/breast-cancer/mastectomy#:~:text=A%20mastectomy%20is%20surgery%20to,a%20high%20risk%20for%20it. Correction: Access to gender-affirming hormones during adolescence and mental health outcomes among transgender adults Jack L. Turban et
“In the first of the two new analyses, a team of researchers led by McMaster University’s Anna Miroshnychenko looked at evidence from 10 studies on the effects of puberty blockers. Three of these studies compared patients given puberty blockers to those who were not, while the others assessed patients before and after being treated with puberty blockers. In both sets of studies, there was “very low certainty evidence” on tested outcomes, including their effect on gender dysphoria, depression, and bone mineral density.
“Most studies provided very low certainty evidence about the outcomes of interest, thus, we cannot exclude the possibility of benefit or harm,” write the study authors.”
…
“The second analysis—also led by Miroshnychenko—looked at evidence related to hormone therapy, using data from 24 studies. Evidence about the effects of hormone therapy was mostly low certainty or very low certainty, they found. Many of the study designs were “limited in assessing intervention effects” and the studies were at risk of “bias and imprecision” resulting “from an insufficient sample size.”
“The best available evidence reporting on the effects of [hormone therapy] in individuals experiencing [gender dysphoria] ranged from moderate to high certainty for cardiovascular events, and low to very low certainty for the outcomes of [gender dysphoria], global function, depression, sexual dysfunction, [bone mineral density], and death by suicide,” they write.
On one level, these analyses don’t tell us much about the best course of action when it comes to young people with gender dysphoria and hormone treatments. They leave open the possibility that puberty blockers and hormone therapy may be beneficial, but also the possibility that they may be harmful or have little effect at all.”
“Just hours into his presidency, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to roll back trans rights in nearly every facet of life. The order describes trans women as men and directs federal agencies to keep them out of “intimate spaces” designed for women. It targets trans people’s identity documents and health care, and it narrowly defines sex in a way that aims to erase the very concept of trans and nonbinary people.
In the week since, the administration has halted transgender people’s passport applications, transferred incarcerated trans women to solitary confinement and moved to bar transgender troops from serving in the military – an effort that was met with an immediate legal challenge. On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management ordered federal programs promoting “gender ideology” to be shut down and their employees put on leave. A day earlier, Trump directed federal agencies to begin crafting policies that could cut off young people’s access to transition care nationwide. And he has done so in orders that describe trans people as dishonorable and “mutilated,” lacking “humility and selflessness.””
“Trump also signed a broad order Monday eliminating federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals. In practice, said Mailman, the order will mean barring any options other than male and female from government documents, including passports and visas, ending the annual recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility, and excluding trans people from gender-segregated spaces that take federal funding, including prisons, migrant housing and domestic violence shelters.”
We should focus on helping those in poverty and those with a lack of wealth and opportunity, not people who have these problems specifically because of race. Those in trouble because of legacy racial issues will be helped by race-neutral welfare.
People around most leaders say the leader is good and they have respect for them. Even people close to Trump often later say he is nuts.
“In January, Delaware Rep.-elect Sarah McBride will also make history in congressional representation, becoming the first openly transgender individual to serve in Congress. But once again, being a trailblazer has come with challenges.
In response to McBride’s election, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution last week intended to ban transgender women like McBride from using women’s bathrooms in the Capitol. House Speaker Mike Johnson initially equivocated on the issue, but under pressure from fellow Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, he issued a statement that all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House offices “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” Mace has since followed up with an even more sweeping proposal, a bill that would apply a transgender bathroom ban to all facilities on federal property.”
…
“56 percent of Americans said they agreed more that “transgender rights have gone too far, infringing on the rights of women and children,” compared to 32 percent who said they agreed more that “protecting transgender rights is essential to ensuring equality for all Americans.” And in another YouGov poll last week, a plurality of 43 percent of Americans said they’d prefer their congressional representatives to focus more on upholding traditional definitions of gender, versus 30 percent who wanted them to focus more on protecting the rights of transgender people (12 percent said neither, and 15 percent were unsure).
When it comes to specific policies, about half of Americans in that poll (including 78 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats) seemed to agree with Mace on bathroom bans, telling YouGov they think transgender people should use bathrooms that correspond to their assigned sex at birth, while 34 percent thought they should use bathrooms that align with their current gender identity, or either option.
Slightly more voters also seem to favor bans on sports participation, while opinions are split on banning gender-affirming care for youth. In an October UMass Amherst poll, a plurality of Americans, 47 percent, supported bans on transgender individuals’ participation in school sports teams matching their gender identity, compared to just 25 percent who opposed them (the rest were undecided). In a Morning Consult poll of registered voters from Nov. 6-7, 56 percent said they would support and 30 percent said they would oppose banning transgender girls and women from competing in high school and college sports. Meanwhile, 39 percent in the UMass Amherst poll said they would oppose policies to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, while fewer, 35 percent, said they would support them. And in the Morning Consult poll, more were still in favor of the bans: 46 percent, compared to 39 percent opposed.”
…
“in an October CNN poll, registered voters were asked if they supported federal policies that were more supportive or more restrictive of transgender rights: Their answers were about evenly split between those options, but a plurality, 42 percent, said they “don’t have strong feelings either way.” That indicates that these issues may not be as pressing or important to many Americans as they are to politicians hoping to fan the culture war flames.”
“Ohio has banned gender-affirming care for minors and restricted transgender women’s and girls’ participation on sports teams, a move that has families of transgender children scrambling over how best to care for them.”
…
“The new law bans gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies, and restricts mental health care for transgender individuals under 18.”