Transitioning: Not Social Justice
Adults can do what they want, BUT KIDS?
Gender affirming care is treating a person of one sex to allow that person to live as the opposite sex and consists of a series of treatments starting with puberty blockers, frequently followed with cross sex hormones and ultimately concluding with surgical genital reconstruction and breast removal or augmentation. With the exception of short-term usage of puberty blockers, gender affirming care is permanent and life altering.
Adolescents face a wide range of issues that can be a source of struggle including puberty, independence, impulsive behavior, body type, self-esteem, sexuality, friends, drugs, and education. Social Media may exacerbate these struggles. There has been an explosion of adolescents, primarily girls, questioning their gender.(1)
There is a debate as to what level of gender affirming care is appropriate.
The Biden Administration and Critical Social Justice proponents are advocating aggressive gender affirming care for adolescents.
Recently, countries in the EU, which had previously allowed open access to gender affirming care, have begun limiting it and prescribing mental health counseling because they have seen the results of studies, early and limited, that gender affirming care may cause more damage than it prevents.
Now we are seeing states starting to limit gender affirming care to the extremely rare cases where it is medically necessary. See the Montana exceptions below which are typical of all of the states limiting gender affirming care.
(1) treatment for a person born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including:
a person born with external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvable ambiguous, including an individual born with 46 XX chromosomes with virilization, 46 XY chromosomes with under virilization, or having both ovarian and testicular tissue; and
a person whom a physician has otherwise diagnosed with a disorder of sexual development in which the physician has determined through genetic or biochemical testing that the person does not have normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action for a male or female; and
(2) treatment of any infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been caused or exacerbated by a [gender affirming] medical treatment listed in subsection (1)(a) or (1)(b), whether or not the medical treatment was performed in accordance with state and federal law and whether or not funding for the medical treatment is permissible under state and federal law.
And, now we are seeing the Woke zealots claim that states are BANNING care of children.
(1) Littman L (2018) Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202330. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202330
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34247956/
https://www.thefp.com/p/gender-affirming-care-dangerous-finland-doctor
https://twitter.com/moxlosllc/status/1666241577964957697?s=46&t=Y4fVsDnz2q8uZ3VNKeco4A