Gender-affirming care is safe, effective, and life-saving care for trans and gender-diverse youth. Of the more than 300,000 high school-aged transgender youth in the United States today, 35% live in states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care. Gender-affirming care includes mental health and non-medical services. Legislative actions typically focus on the medical and surgical aspects of care: puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and gender-affirming surgery (which is rarely approved for adolescents under 18). The legislatures of 23 states have banned these treatments despite overwhelming support for gender-affirming care in the medical and scientific community.

Leading medical researchers and organizations confirm that gender-affirming care has significant positive outcomes for trans youth. A 2022 study published in JAMA Network Open found that having access to hormones and puberty blockers for youth ages 13 to 20 was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depression and 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts compared to youth who did not receive these medications over 12 months. Medical professional organizations, including the Endocrine Society, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, are consistent in their standards and recommendations for medical care for trans youth who desire it –and vocal in their opposition to these bans. We might ask, as parents in one study did, “Why [has] transgender health care now become a political issue when other medical decisions are typically left up to medical experts and patients”?

Some, including contributors to this syllabus, argue it’s an effort by the Right to “uphold white supremacy, normative gender, and heterosexuality” (Barcelos) and because transphobia is more acceptable in broad society, it can be used as a gateway to power for extremists (Branstetter).

This microsyllabus provides an introductory look at gender-affirming care and the legislative movement to ban it. It includes the voices of physicians, lawyers, and researchers, but also trans advocates, youth, and their families. It examines the arguments and motivations of legislators and organizations working to ban the care and invites you to compare that to the evidence-based findings highlighted in the rest of the microsyllabus.

Source: https://genderpolicyreport.umn.edu/microsyllabus-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-youth/