For the last two years, Koen has routinely self-administered weekly testosterone injections without a second thought.
During that time, the trans 17-year-old said his self-image and school and family life has drastically improved. His fear of needles, too, has faded.
“[Transitioning] made me look forward to things more because now I can start paying attention to the better version of myself,” said Koen, who asked to be identified by his first name because of fears for his safety. “It’s something I feel like I’ve needed for a while. I’m able to express myself more fluidly and feel comfortable doing that, which I think is a very big step for me right now.”
At the start of the year, though, a greater worry emerged.
A new law banning gender-affirming care for minors in Louisiana took effect on Jan. 1 prohibiting puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and gender-reaffirming surgery. Now, Koen isn’t sure he could continue his hormone treatment.
Louisiana is one of 22 other states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, disrupting health care needs for trans and nonbinary people.
The court cases striking down these shitty laws really need to get moving. Restricting access to hormone therapy is blatantly unconstitutional, as the existing challenges that have made it through the courts have proved.
People born XXY (Klinefelter’s Syndrome) can get testosterone for treatment, so to say someone who needs testosterone for similar gender affirming care cannot get it is plain discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
I wholly agree with you. And I say this next part as an ally living in Louisiana:
I don’t see the courts being able to stop this from happening. Inevitably, it will get challenged and end up at the Supreme Court, which will rule 6-3 “states rights”.
Conservative justices have shown time and again that unless the constitution literally says the words “shall not infringe upon trans care for minors” they will not interpret it as such.
The only thing stopping this law in the last few years was a veto from the democratic governor, and now that that has flipped republican, the only thing that will stop it is enough people turning out to vote in 2027.
I’m not so sure SCOTUS would rule that way. Even Gorsuch ruled in favor of lgbtq rights because it is such obvious discrimination: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/863498848/supreme-court-delivers-major-victory-to-lgbtq-employees#:~:text=Gorsuch couched his opinion in,or transgender without discriminating …
But that syndrome is literally about a lack of testosterone production in males, so of course hormone treatment is justified.
There’s an imbalance being fixed.
Gender affirmative care isn’t medically necessary, you’re not curing an imbalance. You’re modifying your body to align with what you want it to be.
In my mind it’s just like plastic surgery. You wouldn’t let a kid get tons of plastic surgery because they don’t like their body image. Why should we start pumping them full of hormones?
I’d bet anything you don’t personally know or love any trans folk. On the off chance you do, please please please never tell them that their diagnosable condition is akin to plastic surgery. This is precisely what people are referring to when they talk about harmful, close minded ideals towards trans people and their identities.
Because they kill themselves. That’s why we give gender affirming care - because at best it just really can mess them up not to have it. And they were killing themselves. A lot.
So we came up with a protocol to do reversible puberty blockers for 4-6 years while they and their parents work with an endocrinologist and therapist to make sure this is the right call.
Only at 16 or 17 they then get the option for hormone therapy, and if they’ve been on puberty blockers then they either grow (or don’t grow) boobs naturally.
And unless they think there’s a high risk of suicide or self-mutilation otherwise (and there’s a process and a panel that needs to approve this) they can’t get bottom surgery until they’re at least 18 - assuming they even want it
We also do allow elective plastic surgery with parental and doctor approval - breast reduction or implants for example - at the age they’re eligible for hormone therapy.
Also, we give gender affirming plastic surgery to cis male teens and preteens who have manboobs, I think it can even be covered by insurance. It’s not unnatural or necessary unless they have a high risk for breast cancer, it’s purely because it makes them insecure
Should we start telling schizophrenics to listen to the voices in their head? I’m sure they’d feel a lot more comfortable in their skin.
The general populace agrees with me, even if they’re not saying it out loud. Trans women have to seek out special dating apps, because no cis men actually want to have a relationship with them. If trans women were really women, and I mean if people really believed that. Why won’t they date trans people?
Typical centrist idiot halting all progress because they think their thoughts are so profound.
Are you a trans person? No? Quit telling them how they should treat themselves, you empathy lacking dumb ass.
It’s none of your fucking business.
I don’t need to be trans to have an opinion.
I’m also on the left. Not everybody who disagrees with you falls into the political category you don’t like
No, just trying to have a conversation.
You guys get to share your opinions and thoughts, even though you aren’t doctors.
If a child is born with a cleft lip would you repair it or tell them that’s the way god made them and they have to live with it?
If a child is neurodivergent and has severe gender dysphoria becasue of it do you force them to remain unhappy and uncomfortable or do you help them make adjustments to make them more comfortable?
If you can’t “fix” the issue isn’t the next best step accommodating for it? If someone is paralyzed and the spine can’t be repaired do you leave them in bed or give them a wheelchair? If I person is deaf do you just leave them in silence or give them hearing aids and/or teach them to sign?
Being trans is very often like being gay, it’s hardwired into the brain, just like being left handed. If it’s just the way a person’s brain is wired isn’t it better to relieve discomfort by adjusting the physical to match the mental if the mental can’t be adjusted to match the physical?
There will be kids who are experimenting with their gender identity and decide that they’re most comfortable as their birth gender and that’s great, any form of self discovery is awesome but there will always be people who are gender dysphoric and the most successful way of alleviating that dysphoria is to transition.
Years and years of therapy come before any form a medical transition for kids and often transition simply means a preferred name change, change of clothes and gender affirming hair style. If a child is comfortable with just those changes then medical transition isn’t necessary. If however they, after therapy and non medical gender affirming care still feel uncomfortable puberty blockers can be used to pause puberty until the child is older. Once they’re older they can decide whether or not transition is the right choice for them.
No one should go into transition without therapy first but gender dysphoria is so uncomfortable. It’s like walking around in shoes that are 3 sizes too big or too small your entire life. You can get by, but it’s painful.
Reconstructive surgery to fix an aesthetic-only deformity isn’t “medically necessary” either, by your definition. So you get upset that people stare at you in public? Ha ha, feelings aren’t real, get over it!
Lots of doctors disagree with you. I think I’ll go with their opinions over those of some uninformed internet rando who decides things based on feelings.
The same doctors that started the opioid epidemic because they were in big pharmas pocket?
I wonder how much the hormone manufacturers are making.
That bible chastity belt, is becoming a noose. Good work you Christians. Very Jesus of y’all.
Another proud moment for Christianity
Sure. Apologists will tell you that there was some pure form of Christianity that was good and it got corrupted in recent times by its alliance with the political right. History doesn’t tell us that. It has always been a tool of oppression.
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.
-Fredrick Douglass 1845
Over a century prior to the Jerry Falwell moral majority. In1845 the Christianity presented was viewed as a temporary oddness not aligned with the real Christianity.
Heck even in the letters of Paul, decades before any Gospel accounts he talks about homosexuals going to hell and how people deserved death for not giving the church money.
It was always a shit cult that attacked the vulnerable. Always willing to punch down. “Slaves obey your masters!” It declares.
Folks, if you live in one of these places and are threatened by this: fucking leave. They threaten your life! They have intent and ability to act on those threats, and the ability to get away with it within the system you are currently living in.
Save yourself.
There are people/groups/communities in California that will help you. I can’t speak for other states but I see it every day here.
Put yourself out there on social media and ask for assistance in relocating, I guarantee you will find help. It won’t be glamourous and you will still have to fight for yourself, but not for the same reasons. You are accepted here. Fuck those fascists, do not give them the chance they are frothing to act upon.
I keep seeing comments like these in different threads. Every one of them seem to forget all the factors that keep people stuck in red states. Housing prices are sky high, especially in blue states with prices being 5 times what housing costs here. Wages here are well below a living wage on average as well as being highly stagnant. Most of us live pay check to pay check and have no way of saving enough to relocate. My wife and I have been wanting to move since we got married but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
You’re absolutely right, of course. I am familiar with the comments you’re speaking of, and I meant mine to be a bit more than the usual “Well just move” flippant remark. Hopefully that came across.
The unfortunate truth is exactly as you described, and for someone (and/or their family) to change their circumstances requires sacrifice of some kind. Often, very significant sacrifices.
I don’t want to minimize that- Quite the opposite really. I want to reinforce the fact that for anyone who feels their lives are endangered, those sacrifices might be worth it. And importantly: they don’t have to go through that experience alone.
Anyway, I hope you and your family stay safe and happy. Cheers
Christ, that sounds kinda miserable. My condolences, I hope you can figure something out. If you’ve got free time, try for some licensure of some kind.
I like the enthusiasm, but minors are not generally in a position to up and relocate. Supportive families are increasingly finding themselves needing to move out of hostile states. Most of us are holding our breath for national elections to determine if we need to flee the country.
What exactly is “gender-affirming” care? Is it a sex change? Is it hormone therapy?
Why can’t articles report on specifics instead of using loaded language?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_language
“This type of language is very often made vague to more effectively invoke an emotional response and/or exploit stereotypes.”
Both sides do it, and we should feel shame whenever we stoop as low as /r/conservative.
I think it’s sorta telling that you did a wiki search for loaded language instead of one for gender affirming care. To be clear, it’s absolutely not loaded language, it’s just language you don’t understand, literally anything can seem vague if you don’t know what it entails, if you truly don’t want to be like /conservative then I think you should be a but more proactive at self education.
Here is a better rundown from a neutral source. But tldr it’d everything from parental support/respect for prounons/new haircut/clothes and possibly puberty blockers for minors. To hormones, electrolysis and an extremely long list of different surgical options too numerous to lost depending on the person.
So the idea of blocking all medical options for minors is ridiculous since no minors are getting surgery. Period. And puberty blockers are both reversible and have been used for decades. Legislation restricting what psychologists, pediatricians and endocrinologists have all agreed as safe and effective treatment is just lunacy and bigotry.
Gender affirming care is professionally administered interventions that help a person live an affirmed life as the gender they most identify with.
In practical terms, it’s a giant-ass flow chart with a bunch of different questions and options that end in a wide array of care options that properly guided individuals and either partake of, or not. Everything from talk therapy, to puberty blockers, to hormone replacement therapy, to physical surgeries on their genitals, to adding or removing breast mass, to changing the configuration of their face. Whatever makes sense to the individual.
I didn’t read the article, and I refuse to do even the most basic research on this subject, but let me tell you (with undeserved confidence) why you’re wrong.
