Gender-Affirming Care: Legislators, Activists & the Evidence
Respectfully...taking a look at the outrage on both sides on gender affirming care for minors at James Magazine
My latest piece, published at James Magazine. Here is a short excerpt.
Over the past year, Georgia has witnessed the introduction of several laws in the General Assembly focused on safeguarding children in schools, protecting women’s sports and regulating gender-affirming care for minors.
Critics oppose these laws, branding them as anti-trans and promoting exaggerated claims that they pose mortal threats to children. However, in reality, the fervent pursuit of policies targeting children by Democrats and trans activists raises questions about their motivations. Have a look at the numbers: the 2021 U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey indicates that only 0.6 percent of adults identify as transgender or nonbinary, translating to just under 2,000,000 individuals out of the total U.S. population of 333 million. In comparison, there are approximately 73 million Americans under the age of 18.
The discourse surrounding gender-affirming care for those under the age of 18 in the United States is fraught with misinformation and has prompted a reevaluation of strategies across the developed world. In Europe, France, Britain, Finland, Sweden and Norway are revisiting their approaches to gender-affirming care for minors, driven by concerns raised by physicians regarding irreversible risks. This shift in Europe reflects a healthcare policy realignment led by medical experts rather than activists or legislative mandates. This discovery is not a political narrative or a narrative propagated by wealthy white colonial descendants. It is a bona fide reality rooted in empirical data and legitimate facts.
Perhaps most confusing is the intense support for gender-affirming care within the American medical-industrial complex. After all, many medical professionals have characterized the issue of gender-affirming care for minors as one of the most significant ethical dilemmas in the history of medicine.
Unfortunately, in this regard, you simply follow the money. The medical-industrial complex and ancillary industries stand to profit from the expansion of gender-affirming care, completely disregarding the apparent ethical concerns and obvious violations of the Hippocratic Oath (“First, Do No Harm”).
Georgia law now stops anyone under 18– who hasn’t been grandfathered in– from receiving hormone therapy. It also limits most surgeries to help transgender minors transition. House Bill 1170, which would ban puberty blockers, was lost in the last-minute frenzy of legislation. But if successful, the bill would have further limited gender-affirming care for minors and outlawed many of the practices.
The pushback against age limits for such life-altering methods is incredibly perplexing. The imposition of age limits is not a new development; the state has similar regulations for activities such as drinking alcohol, using tobacco, buying firearms, buying fireworks, gambling, voting, driving cars, operating boats, and soon, opening social media accounts. Age limits to protect minors from themselves and from making bad decisions while in the throes of misguided youth are hardly surprising.
Note from author: an article from 2020 in The Economist stated: “studies suggest that 61-98% of children with gender-related distress, if allowed to go through puberty without medical intervention, will be reconciled to it. Many will realise that they are simply gay.”