Texas GOP Claims Gender-Affirming Care Harms Children-But What Is The Reality?
Written by Nathan Matsko
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
Bellefonte-Texas is gearing up to instate a total ban on transgender medical care for anyone under the age of 18, according to Axios.
Once signed by Governor Greg Abbott, the new legislation will kick in on September 1st. The bill seeks to ban the use of puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and other medical practices used to treat gender dysphoria. Any minors currently undergoing any of these treatments will be forced to gradually stop once the legislation takes effect. The bill comes amidst a torrent of legislation targeting transgender people in Texas. Proponents of the bill see any type of gender-affirming care as child abuse.
Surveys in recent years have estimated that in Texas, transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 make up less than 1.5% of the total population of the state.
The Research
Despite fears that gender-affirming care is harmful to youth, medical data and scientific research suggest the opposite. According to the British Columbia Medical Journal, youth who receive gender-affirming care note a significant decrease in symptoms related to gender dysphoria-such as depression and self-harm-while also seeing a marked improvement in general happiness, school performance, and overall quality of life. It has also been shown that social acceptance, as well as protection from discrimination, go a long way in improving the lives of transgender youth.
Though research on gender dysphoria and transgender mental health is still scarce, new research is bringing information on the topic to light. A study out of the University of Ottawa last year found that teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 that identify as transgender are more than seven times more likely to attempt suicide.
Legislation targeting care for transgender youth not only removes a solution that has been shown to have a positive effect but also directly contributes to the issue. The Trevor Project, a nonprofit which focuses on suicide prevention amongst the LGBTQ+ community, saw a marked increase in crisis calls from transgender youth in Texas in 2021 as the state sought to push similar bills, such as a ban on transgender participation in high school sports. Compared to numbers from 2020, the nonprofit saw a 150% increase in the number of crisis calls from LGBTQ+ youth, receiving nearly 4,000 calls from transgender youth.
A Future legal battle
The bill is not likely to go unchallenged. Numerous human rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have stated that they will be filing lawsuits against the state of Texas in an effort to halt the legislation from moving forward.
Republican lawmakers in Texas have struggled to pass similar legislation in the past related to transgender youth. In 2021, Texas’s legislature was unable to pass a bill that would have classified providing gender-affirming care to minors as child abuse. Last year, Governor Abbott made a directive asking Texas citizens to report any parents who appeared to be allowing their children to undergo these medical procedures to the authorities, further claiming that it is classified as child abuse, while also stating that failure to do so could come with criminal penalties.
A judge shot down the order, however, deeming it unconstitutional, though that hasn’t stopped the state from investigating multiple parents for allowing their children to undergo gender-affirming care. Texas’s Attorney General Ken Paxton also came under fire in December of last year after requesting data regarding the number of Texans that had changed their gender on driver’s licenses.