Jump to content

Archived

This thread has been closed to further replies because it was not updated for 12 months. If you wish to have this thread reinstated, please contact an administrator.

Shego

Arkansas has become the first state to ban health care for trans youth

Recommended Posts

Quote

The Arkansas Senate passed a bill Monday that would ban access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors, including reversible puberty blockers and hormones. The bill now heads to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican. Unless he vetoes it, Arkansas will become the first state to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union LGBT & HIV Project, called the bill “the single most extreme anti-trans law to ever pass through a state legislature.” The bill is one of two types of legislation being considered in more than two dozen states: measures that ban or restrict access to gender-affirming care for trans minors, and those that ban trans young people from competing in school sports teams of their gender identity. Governors in three states — Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee — have signed trans athlete bans into law.

In addition to Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee are also advancing restrictions on gender-affirming care. Alabama’s Senate approved a bill that would make it a felony to provide care such as puberty blockers or hormones for trans minors, and a Tennessee House Committee also just advanced a similar measure that includes misdemeanor criminal penalties. Strangio and trans people in Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama are afraid of what the next week and months will look like as more states hear and pass anti-trans bills. “I really worry about the fact that we're just a few votes away from some of the most sweeping and damaging and potentially genocidal laws from ever being passed, and we barely have a mention of it in the bigger national conversation of what's going on in this particular moment in U.S. history,” Strangio said.Arkansas’ bill is already having an impact on trans people there, said Rumba Yambú, director of Intransitive, a group that supports trans people in the state.

“It's one of the worst bills that they could have created,” said Yambú, who uses gender neutral pronouns. Michele Hutchison, a pediatric doctor in Arkansas, testified in front of the state Senate last Monday, March 22, that just after the bill passed the House, there were “multiple kids in our emergency room because of an attempted suicide, just in the last week.” Yambú said, “It's just expected that if this passes, it will cost lives, and they don't seem to care about that,” referring to the Arkansas legislators who support the bill. “It's already difficult enough to survive here, when they're not actively creating more laws to oppress us.” Strangio said Alabama’s bill, which the state Senate passed this month, is the most extreme medical bill so far, because it would ban care for trans people up to 19 years old, and it includes felony penalties. It would also prevent public funds, such as Medicaid, from being used for transition-related care.

If either Arkansas or Alabama passes their bills, trans young people who are already receiving care will lose it, Strangio said. Zuriel Hooks, 18, a trans client of the Knights and Orchids Society, which supports trans people in Alabama, said she would be “devastated” if that happens. “That’s something I would never want to happen,” she said. “I've come so far, I made a goal, and for that to be taken away from me is sad. This is something I want and need in my life to make me feel like me. I don’t want to see that taken away at all."
Alabama’s bill would also require school personnel to “out” students and tell their parents if they say their gender or sex is inconsistent with their assigned sex at birth. It’s a way of “scaring anyone who's even questioning their gender from ever mentioning it,” said Nic, 32, who lives in Cedar Point, Alabama, and asked to go only by her first name because she’s not out as trans at work and fears repercussions.

A House committee in Tennessee passed a similar measure last week. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for doctors to provide gender-affirming care to children who haven’t yet reached puberty, and it would also require trans youth who have reached puberty to have at least two physicians and one child psychiatrist sign off on their treatment.

x

Link to post
Share on other sites

I sort of agree with not putting children on the path to transitioning medically? It feels weird to me and like a life-altering thing that there should absolutely be age minimums on. HOWEVER, the thing about forcibly outing kids to their parents is extremely gross and dangerous.

Link to post
Share on other sites
34 minutes ago, Venom said:

I sort of agree with not putting children on the path to transitioning medically? It feels weird to me and like a life-altering thing that there should absolutely be age minimums on. HOWEVER, the thing about forcibly outing kids to their parents is extremely gross and dangerous.

While I can to a small degree see this point of view, I don't think that's really what is happening. It's not putting them on a path that they don't want to be on. If a minor is bringing up the fact that they don't feel comfortable as their birth gender, I would say that it's pretty safe to assume they understand fundamentally what that means. If they want this to happen, then the option should available to them I think that we can trust children to know what's going on in their heads and with their bodies, especially if we provide them with the information about what transitioning is and what it would entail. It's not super common to see an incredibly young child going through a transition surgery, but it isn't unheard of for younger kids to start the process toward that slowly because people trans people do tend to become aware that they are at an early age. In banning the care outright for people underage, it just forces them to be trapped in the body they were born in for years which could be detrimental to their mental health as well as their physical health. I believe if a patient is a minor, then there does need to be at least a discussion between them, a parent, and a doctor but to just outright deny it to them is potentially sentencing them to years of suffering as someone they're not comfortable being. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I will never pretend that I understand how transgendered folks feel, or operate. But that’s not the point, to suggest that this legislation only targets transgendered people is a bit of an understatement. 
 

Asa Hutchinson also signed another piece of legislation which permits doctors the right to refuse care under religious or “moral” reasons. 
 

These people are showing their true colors under the guise of protecting the children or some shit.

Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Darth Sidious said:

I will never pretend that I understand how transgendered folks feel, or operate. But that’s not the point, to suggest that this legislation only targets transgendered people is a bit of an understatement. 
 

Asa Hutchinson also signed another piece of legislation which permits doctors the right to refuse care under religious or “moral” reasons. 
 

These people are showing their true colors under the guise of protecting the children or some shit.

From what I've observed (through news, at least) American Christians are among the most reactionary people ever. It's weird that they always feel oppressed by minority...that sentence alone should give us a warning of how dangerously dire their self-victimization is. Ultimately, their government is mostly filled with politicians who never even gave a genuine shxt for large society, let alone the LGBTQ+, so the fact that they keep doing this is so pathetic.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 8
  • Created
  • Last Reply

  • Browsing now   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×