Charlie Apple has experienced people questioning his humanity, suggesting that he is a confused child or even a moral anomaly. As a transgender teen, he admitted that his future could include discrimination, verbal abuse and violence. But the sense of peace he felt during his physical transition was worth the risk.
Still, Apple said it was particularly painful last year. The same kind of inhumane he heard in the playground when a Texas legislator debated whether to reject all transgender children, from participation in sports to medical care to confirm gender. I used words.
“Look at these people who are supposed to protect you, who are supposed to make a law to protect your children, say all these horrifying things and reveal that you are not worth the fight? “?” Said 18-year-old Apple, who testified to his parents against several anti-trans bills in Texas. “That’s a completely different thing.”
State legislators across the country submitted a record number of anti-transgender bills in 2021, many of them specifically targeted at transgender youth. Texas lawmakers have put nearly 50 such bills, including unsuccessful bills that could have allowed children to be placed in foster parents if they sent their parents to jail and approved treatment to confirm their gender. I made a suggestion. In the first week of 2022 alone, lawmakers from at least seven states have proposed legislation for young people in LGBTQ +. On February 3, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed a bill banning transgender girls and college women from playing in women’s sports teams. It will be the tenth state to pass such a ban.
The discussion is not limited to the United States. In 2020, three judges from the British High Court ruled against the use of adolescent inhibitors under the age of 16, stating that young people are unlikely to give informed consent. The decision was overturned in September 2021.
As health care providers continue to discuss best practices, larger non-medical discussions in these legislative efforts to limit access to care are negatively impacting transgender adolescents, Lurie Pediatrics. Dr. Alon Janssen, Vice-Chair of Hospital Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, said. Chicago division.
“These are already very vulnerable children. We know that transgender youth suicide rates are incredibly high,” Janssen said. “We anticipate that legislative efforts created to reduce access to life-saving care will have negative consequences.”
In a Trevor Project survey conducted last fall, 85% of LGBTQ + youth reported that recent discussions on anti-trans bills had a negative impact on mental health. In a 2020 survey, nonprofits serving LGBTQ + youth and focusing on crisis intervention were among LGBTQ + youth, including more than half of transgender and non-binary youth. Forty-two percent reported that they were seriously considering suicide the previous year.
“I am concerned that the serious and documented harm to the health and well-being of LGBTQ youth is seen as a highly effective means of political tactics and financing. That’s it, “said Casey Pick, Senior Fellow of Advocacy. Government issues in the Trevor Project. “It scares me that LGBTQ youth are being sacrificed for political processes.”
Last year, the Trevor Project’s lifeline and digital crisis services had more than 200,000 phone calls, emails, and texts from across the country, of which about 14,500 came from Texas, according to Pick.
Mary Elizabeth Castle, senior policy adviser to Texas Value, a faith-based advocacy group working to promote a law banning gender-verifying care, said more bills would come.
“Our position at Texas Value, and our study is that children should not have access to adolescent inhibitors, sex hormones, or sex reassignment surgery,” she said. .. “Many of these children who claim to be experiencing gender identity are dealing with the usual problems faced by Preteen, becoming aware of themselves and finding their identities.”
Many medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the Pediatric Endocrinology Society, and the American Psychiatric Association, approve gender-verifying care.
The rise of political enthusiasm has had an impact. Following criticism from a conservative candidate for Governor of Texas, the Texas Family Protection Services Department has removed the LGBTQ + youth resource page from its website, which contains information on suicide prevention and the Trevor Project hotline. At least one Texas school district also reportedly blocked access to LGBTQ + resources such as the Trevor Project, but revived some of them after students protested.
LGBTQ + children are overrated in the child welfare system and are less likely to have access to adequate mental health and health care or access to the Internet outside of school or child welfare institutions than other children. Therefore, these setbacks are of particular concern. According to the Trevor Project, foster parents of LGBTQ + children are more likely to report suicide attempts than their classmates.
“What do you think about transgender youth, whether it’s real or not, they’ll want to prevent suicide,” said Oregon, who helped set up a U.S. clinic that provided evaluation and medical intervention. Said Laura Edwards Reaper, a clinical psychologist at the United States. For transgender youth. “If they really care about young people, they will devote their energy to allocating more resources to the areas that are lacking in the field.”
Edwards-Leeper is diligent to improve therapist training and explore mental health concerns beyond gender identity before patients initiate medical interventions such as adolescent inhibitors and sex hormones. We advocate increasing. However, she said medical intervention was appropriate for some adolescents.
“In my opinion, these things, especially the treatment of these children, should not be left to the courts or lawmakers,” Edwards Reaper said. “It really should be in the hands of mental health and healthcare providers trained to do the job.”
Dr. Jason Rafati, a pediatrician and psychologist in Lord Island, who wrote the 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on transkids support, said current political rhetoric and law are not science-based. .. Medical protocols for transgender people are not new, he said, adding that politicizing the provision of medical care to transgender youth is inappropriate and damaging.
“By picking up books or banning websites, people’s experiences cannot be erased,” he said. “Children still feel what they are feeling. They are now feeling more isolated and lonely, and there is no reference to help normalize their emotions as part of the human experience. It’s scary when talking about emotional and psychological health and development. “
In Tucson, Arizona, Rizet Trujillo, who has a 14-year-old transgender son, said he is familiar with overcoming social barriers as an American-born daughter of Mexican immigrants. But when her son came out as transgender, she and her husband were worried that their children would be further marginalized.
Trujillo learned how to find a safe business or neighborhood for his son. Still, he has been dealing with anti-trans slurs at school. And she said it was getting harder and harder.
“There is this fatigue and disappointment that we are still having the same conversation and repeating the same battle over and over,” Trujillo said.
Ultimately, the law and its surrounding discourse are aimed at children, said Dr. Terans Weeden, an adolescent medicine fellow at Lully Children’s Hospital.
“This is exactly these kids, these young people,” Weeden said. “They didn’t wake up one morning and decided,’Hey, I want to be part of this isolated, banished, despised, teased, and isolated community.'”
Despite concerns about future legislation on LGBTQ + youth and the impact of surrounding rhetoric, Apple hopes things can improve.
“I’m human and transgender,” he told KHN. “I am a mosaic of experiences and identities with joy, sadness, happiness and love, just like you. Seeing us as multifaceted human beings is the first step in fighting this.”
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