The use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat children with gender dysphoria has been banned or restricted in 26 states.
Summary
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Indiana’s law banning puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors, aligning with similar laws in 26 GOP-led states.
Plaintiffs argued the law discriminates based on sex and interferes with parental rights to direct medical treatment for their children, but the 2-1 ruling dismissed these claims.
The court stated the law applies equally to all minors and parents don’t have unrestricted rights to medical treatments.
This decision comes as the Supreme Court prepares to review a similar Tennessee case, potentially setting a nationwide precedent.
We're in Indiana. One of my daughter's close friends is trans. The school system treats him like shit already. He has to change with the girls and use the girls' bathroom. Once, a girl was being a bigot to him over and over and he finally lost it and slapped her. He got in trouble, she did not.
I wish I could help him somehow. He's such a sweet kid.
I think this one is more difficult than it sounds.
You are asking if someone should have the right to make a life long decision, before they have matured enough to make a life long decision. Tie that in with parents who can both have their child's best interests at heart, or their own preconceived religion and views on it and there is no wide reaching decision that is best for everyone.
Saying that, they would have said no regardless of the discussions and best interests of the individual. These discussions need to be had, but quietly pretty fucking confident they won't happen in the next 4 years.
Sure, there's some tough discussions to be had, but puberty blocker access is pretty damn straightforward to anyone who has actually researched it for 30 seconds or more. Plus, minor healthcare requires parental consent. Maybe some conversations are required. If they are, we better fucking defer to the parents in the meantime.
The problem is that, in this situation, no decision IS a decision.
Up until puberty, boys and girls are quite similar. It's puberty that causes the lifelong changes. We already know that delaying puberty doesn't cause long-term issues. Puberty blockers are used to treat or help with other conditions. By blocking puberty, you are buying time. Time for the child to mature. Time for phycologists to assess. Time to practice the role before locking it in permanently. Time to grow, learn, and make the very decision you are talking about.
Puberty blockers are reversible - that's not a lifelong decision. That information should have been in the article, and if we didn't live in a dumbshit rightwing dystopia where press is owned by the conservatives and also fears retribution from the conservatives, that information would've been in there.
Surgery? Sure, let's have that conversation - though I would certainly argue it's not the state's business what happens between a child, their parents, and their doctors, any more than it would be any other lifelong medical procedure. But it's at least a little murky. But this decision isn't surgery, it's puberty blockers. Not murky. Just evil.
Puberty blockers aren't life long. Puberty is. These parents aren't trying to give their kids sex change operations. They're trying to give their kids a chance to make those decisions for themselves.
I think this one is more difficult than it sounds.
I think that teens and kids are going to kill themselves because of this regardless of how difficult you think it sounds. I was a trans teen and waiting until I was 18 caused me to attempt suicide. Sure, it was only once, but I could have succeeded if I hadn't chickened out and didn't have a therapist at the time. Maybe TMI, but these discussions need to be had, as you say.
Also, puberty blockers are reversible at any time.
Much like book bans in school libraries that have moved to city libraries and all the other bans that started in schools, this will soon move from bans on children getting healthcare, to bans on adults getting healthcare once they use the "save the children" rhetoric to make their followers comfortable with the prejudices in general.
Yeah, that's one reason I'll never get an official Autism diagnosis. The misinformation about autism that politicians work with is gross. I mostly blame the companies like Autism Speaks who present it as a disease to be cured so parents don't feel bad about making their kids mask rather than most forms being simply a sociologically induced disability because people are too lazy to adapt and too many exploitative social practices exist that neurotypicals can adapt to easily, but many neurodivergent people can't and they don't want to give up the exploitation.
The frustrating part of all of this is that it is true that puberty blockers aren't approved by the FDA for delaying puberty for gender affirming treatments, but it is used anyway as an off-label use. Criticism of off-label uses of pharmaceuticals is a perfectly valid concern to have.
But if you actually had this concern in good faith, you would be putting pressure on the FDA to investigate this use of puberty blockers directly and make a call or whether or not this is an approved use. You would be demanding that the FDA fill in the gaps in their knowledge, and only allow this use of puberty blockers if there was no harm found.
Going straight to the legislature and banning it outright is underhanded as shit. The only reason to do that is because you know that the FDA has no reason to disapprove of this use, and you want to medically oppress trans people regardless of what the science actually says.
It's transphobic bullshit, and anyone telling you that their concern is the safety and welfare of children is lying to you, because if that were true they would act like it.
Like gender identity interacts with the chemistry of the drug somehow? Is it safe if the kid is cis and it is not when the kid is trans? Is there some (well) materialism in gender identity or is this philosophical dualism of some sort?
The prescribed use is to suppress the development of sex features by blocking sex hormones, so how is it different?