It's sad how susceptible most of this country is to misleading right-wing narratives.
The claim that minors are being "mutilated" by doctors and "big pharma" is a misleading and inflammatory misrepresentation of gender-affirming care. This care is grounded in well-established medical practices designed to support young people experiencing gender dysphoria. For younger children, gender-affirming care typically involves non-medical steps like social transition, which means using different names, pronouns, or clothing that aligns with their gender identity.
Medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, are only considered for adolescents (on the mid-higher age range) experiencing significant distress. These treatments are reversible and give young people and their families time to explore their identity without making permanent changes. Contrary to the nasty rhetoric, surgeries on minors are extremely, extremely rare and only performed in exceptional cases with extensive evaluation and consent.
Major medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, endorse gender-affirming care because it has been shown to significantly improve mental health outcomes for transgender youth, reducing rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. The narrative that doctors and pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit to "mutilate" children grossly mischaracterizes their role. Healthcare providers follow rigorous guidelines to ensure care is safe and beneficial, with the primary goal of alleviating suffering and improving quality of life.
Using inflammatory language like "mutilation" spreads fear and stigma, making it harder for transgender youth and their families to access the care they need. This rhetoric distracts from the real issue: supporting young people in distress and helping them live authentically and healthily. Rather than sensationalizing, discussions about gender-affirming care should focus on evidence, compassion, and the lived experiences of those it seeks to help.
There are no positives in this. Trump's policies targeting gender-affirming care will lead to increased suffering for trans youth, stripping them of medically supported treatments proven to reduce depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Denying this care ignores the consensus of major medical organizations and undermines their well-being, leaving them more vulnerable to mental health crises.
AAP reaffirms gender-affirming care policy, authorizes systematic review of evidence to guide update.
US paediatric leaders back gender affirming approach while also ordering evidence review.
AAP Policy Statement Urges Support and Care of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents.
Pubertal Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation.
Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents.
Did you know that there is an actual epidemic with parents forcing irreversible surgeries on intersex children at birth?
Despite many gender-affirming care bans for trans youth across the U.S., controversial surgeries for intersex children to assign them a gender are often still allowed.
abcnews.go.com
Though conservative legislators across the country have introduced or passed bans that limit access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, the bills have explicitly allowed an exception for surgery on intersex minors.
This means surgeries can be performed on babies or young children, but only if they have a medically verifiable condition that doesn't fit into the typical definitions of "male" or "female."
Surgeries on intersex children have been condemned by the United Nations, the Human Rights Campaign and intersex activists around the world. However, in the U.S., the federal government has left it up to individual states to create their own laws on gender-affirming care.
Some doctors have defended these surgeries as being an option that should be made available to children and patients. But many intersex patients and advocates say these procedures are medically risky.
As anti-transgender legislation has swept the country -- with lawmakers in many states preventing minors from undergoing gender-affirming care -- carve-outs have been allowed for surgeries on intersex children to continue.
Dr. Arlene Baratz, a Pennsylvania-based physician and medical and research coordinator for InterConnect Support Group for intersex people, said she finds the exception "interesting" considering that most transgender children do not undergo surgery until they are in their late teens and don't undergo genital surgery until they are age 18 or older.
They also are often required to undergo a psychological evaluation and have to live in the gender they identify with before surgery can be performed.
"The opposite is actually true for intersex children, and they [often] undergo surgery when they're infants. Again, they're not old enough to speak, some of them aren't old enough to walk," Baratz, the mother of two intersex children, told ABC News. "They know nothing about themselves, we know nothing about them, who they are, what they will like, how they are experiencing their gender."
She continued, "And so, I think that in order not to make mistakes with this kind of surgery, it should be available to people who want it and it should be available to people who can understand the consequences of it and that it should wait until they're old enough to be able to decide for themselves."
Why does this not receive the same "concern"?