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Tag: gender transition

  • Parents have no right to allow their children’s gender transition, Republicans say

    Parents have no right to allow their children’s gender transition, Republicans say

    Myriam Reynolds of Texas, the mother of a transgender son, said before he received care, he was unhappy and she has “no doubt that the health care my son accessed was life-saving.” (Screenshot from committee webcast)

     

    WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on a panel for limited federal government on Thursday argued that parents should not be allowed to let their transgender children have access to gender-affirming care.

    “A parent has no right to sexually transition a young child,” the chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, said at a hearing on transgender youth. “Our American legal system recognizes the important public interest in protecting children from abuse and physical harm. No parent has a constitutional right to injure their children.”

    Johnson, and several other Republicans, floated the idea that the federal government should get involved, but did not offer specifics on potential legislation. They argued that gender-affirming surgery should not be allowed for transgender minors. That type of surgery is rarely performed on patients under 18.

    In Johnson’s home state, the Louisiana Legislature in early July voted to override a veto from Gov. John Bel Edwards, allowing a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth to become law.

    Thursday’s hearing reflects a broader trend. At least 21 Republican-led states have passed laws banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an organization that tracks LGBTQ+ state policies.

    The wave of legislation has had a chilling effect on health care providers, who are wary of providing other care to transgender youth, such as mental health and other medical care.

    Gender-affirming care can be social affirmations such as adopting a hairstyle or clothes that align with a transgender youth’s gender identity, or the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Typically, in adulthood it can be gender-affirming surgery.

    “When our Republican colleagues allege that gender-affirming care raises particular dangers or due process issues, that is fearmongering at its worst,” the top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, said. “Picking on already vulnerable kids in order to stir up chaos that they hope to ride to success at the ballot box.”

    Democrats said the hearing is a pattern of GOP lawmakers attacking transgender kids and their families.

    Scanlon said that barring parents from making those decisions would be in violation of their parental rights. Republicans passed legislation for a federal “Parents Bill of Rights” in March pertaining to access to education-related materials.  

    State laws

    Several federal courts have either blocked or struck down state laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth, such as in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Indiana.

    The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, asked one of the Democratic witnesses, Shannon Minter, an attorney, what the federal courts have concluded about states moving to pass bans on gender-affirming care.

    Minter, who is the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and is also transgender, said the federal courts have found that those state laws “severely burden parents’ fundamental rights to make medical decisions for their own children.”

    “They’re blatantly discriminatory,” he said. “They violate the guarantee of equal protection because they do something that has just never been done before in this country, which is single out a particular group of people, transgender young people, in order to deny them medical care.”

    Despite the federal court cases, Johnson argued that states have the right to regulate gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers.

    Puberty blockers were first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1993 to temporarily pause puberty in children who were going through it too early. When used in gender-affirming care for transgender youth, those adolescents can choose to start hormone therapy, in which they receive either estrogen or testosterone treatments, whichever one that aligns with their gender identity.

    “We’re limited government conservatives, right,” Johnson said. “We obviously recognize that parents have a natural and fundamental right to the bringing up of their children to make decisions with regard to their care and custody and control. But at the same time, our legal system in this country, our law does not allow a parent to physically or mentally abuse or harm a child.”

    May Mailman a senior legal fellow at the Independent Woman’s Law Center, a conservative advocacy organization, said states should be able to regulate who can have access to transgender health care.

    “Unfortunately, I think you’re seeing this movement that states should not be able to regulate the practice of medicine and somehow federal judges should,” she said.

    Life-saving care

    One of the Democratic witnesses, Myriam Reynolds, is the mother of a transgender son. She said before he received care, he was unhappy and she has “no doubt that the health care my son accessed was life-saving.”

    Reynolds said any health care provided to her son was through slow and careful decisions that were approved by her and her husband and that their son always had the opportunity to stop if he wanted to. He received puberty blockers as well as counseling.

    “When my child came out, as transgender, there was not the hysteria that there is now about this,” she said. “To be looked at as a child abuser, or you know an indoctrinate or something like that, it feels very hateful and divisive.”

    Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt said that instead of parents jumping to gender-affirming care when a child tells them they have gender dysphoria, meaning their gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, they should instead question “the root cause of that feeling.”

    He compared that decision to his toddlers, whom if they could “have their way, they would have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for every single meal in between. Oh, the wisdom of children.”

    “In a sane country, we know that children aren’t mature enough to make adult decisions that will impact the rest of their lives, that’s why we have parents,” he said. “Children cry for ice cream, but as parents, we have the wisdom to know that ice cream is not in their best interests, particularly their long-term interest.”

    He said that in 2024, Republicans will have an opportunity to “stop all this foolishness.”

    Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is not a member of the panel, took aim at a recently passed law in Washington that protects transgender youth seeking gender-affirming care who are estranged from their parents.

    “I am against transitioning children against the will of their parents,” he said.

    Title IX

    Several of the Republican witnesses criticized the Department of Education’s new rule that updates Title IX to allow transgender youth who attend public schools from competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

    The rule came as states with Republican state legislatures have passed laws banning transgender students from competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

    One of the witnesses, Paula Scanlan, is a former NCAA athlete who swam at the University of Pennsylvania and shared a locker room with Lia Thomas, the first openly trans woman to compete in the NCAA women’s division. Scanlan said she opposed the Biden administration’s changes to Title IX and that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in sports that align with their gender identity.

    House Republicans recently passed legislation to ban transgender girls from competing in the sports that align with their gender identity, a move that mirrors legislation passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures.

    Mailman, with the Independent Woman’s Law Center, said that gender ideology has destroyed “women and girls, by dissolving legal protections for women in athletics.”

    Reynolds said as soon as her son came out as transgender, he stopped playing sports because of the rhetoric about transgender athletes competing in sports that align with their gender identity.

    “That left a big hole in his life,” she said.

    Ariana Figueroa
    ARIANA FIGUEROA

    Ariana covers the nation’s capital for States Newsroom. Her areas of coverage include politics and policy, lobbying, elections and campaign finance.

    MORE FROM AUTHOR

  • Jeopardy champion Ohioan, others testify against anti-LGBTQ health care bill

    Jeopardy champion Ohioan, others testify against anti-LGBTQ health care bill

    Amy Schneider, Dayton native and Jeopardy! champion, leaves the Ohio House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee after testifying against House Bill 454. Schneider, who is a trans woman, said the bill would be “tragic” for Ohio children. Photo: Susan Tebben, OCJ

    BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal

    A packed and stuffy Families, Aging and Human Services committee room was flanked by multiple overflow rooms, where applause could be heard after parents, trans advocates and individuals implored the committee not to approve of House Bill 454, a bill created by committee member state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery.

    One of the testimonies came from Dayton native Amy Schneider, a trans woman who went on to become a Jeopardy! super champion, and has used her platform to support her fellow LGBTQ+ community members.

    “To be given the chance in Ohio, where I spent 30 years of my life, to have a chance to make a difference and have a chance to actually, if nothing else, slow down these laws and give trans kids a little bit longer to be safe, then I’ve just got to do it,” Schneider told the OCJ before she gave her testimony to the committee.

    In her testimony, she sought not to demonize those who support the bill, but to ask that they do what they claim is the main goal of the bill: protecting children.

    “But if you do share that goal, then passing this bill would be a tragic mistake,” Schneider said. “Because far from protecting children, this bill would put some of them in grave danger, a danger that not all them would survive.”

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=5sRGUicLu6Q%3Ffeature%3Doembed

    Several of those that testified, including Schneider, called gender-affirming care “life-saving” care, in that it would help suicide rates among trans individuals, and the overall mental health of those attempting to live as they want to live.

    “With this bill, I wouldn’t be able to appear as I want to appear to the public with a form that would greatly appeal to me,” said 15-year-old Cass Steiner, who appeared alongside her mother, Kat. “This would likely send me, and everyone else who is expecting treatment, into another deep depression.”

     State Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, looks on as the House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee, of which he’s a member, listens to testimony against his bill restricting gender-affirming care, House Bill 454. The bill did not see a vote on Wednesday.
    Photo: Susan Tebben, OCJ

    In the middle of two hours of testimony, Click introduced a substitute version of the bill, that he said was an attempt to “meet in the middle” of opposition and support.

    In the new version, puberty blockers or hormone therapy is allowed for minors, but only after a doctor confirms that the child “has received on a routine basis and for at least a two-year period counseling related to gender dysphoria, mental health and the risks of gender transition,” according to the sub bill’s analysis by the Legislative Service Commission.

    A doctor must also screen for other things that “may be influencing the minor’s gender dysphoria,” including depression, autism or ADHD, and “ensure that these comorbidities are treated and stabilized for at least two years.”

    Along with conducting other physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse screenings, a second doctor must be consulted and agree to the treatment plan.

    Asked twice how the two-year time frame was decided on, Click told reporters it was “discussed by some other folks who came up with that and I thought that sounded reasonable.”

    He did not specify who he consulted with to come to that amount of time.

    The substitute bill also seeks to keep track of the number of medical and therapy appointments the minor attended before a physician recommended hormones or puberty blockers, any mental health conditions before being diagnosed with a “gender-related condition” and any follow-up the minor received after treatment.

    The bill also requires physicians to report “the number of minors who resumed identification with their biological sex,” and “the number of minors for whom the physician previously prescribed drugs or hormones who have not been prescribed those hormones or drugs for one year or more,” according to the LSC analysis.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=WUIJG2_rhU8%3Ffeature%3Doembed

    That information would be reported on a yearly basis to the General Assembly and to the Ohio Department of Health.

    Like the abortion ban that is currently held up in court, violating HB 454 could put doctor’s medical licenses at risk, and the state Attorney General would be authorized to bring against anyone violating the bill, should it become law.

    The bill was not voted on during Wednesday’s committee meeting, with chair Susan Manchester, R-Waynesfield, adjourning the meeting immediately after the last witness of the day finished.

    It’s not clear what the fate of the bill will be from here, with the General Assembly’s session ending at the end of December. More hearings could be scheduled, which Click supports because he said there are more people to hear from, particularly those who have been “damaged” by gender-affirming care.

    He said the testimony he heard on Wednesday wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before, but it didn’t change his mind on the bill.

    “(Children) have to have that period to work through this to make sure this isn’t a phase, it’s not a social contagion … we want to give them that legitimate chance to work through this,” Click said.

    He said he won’t “write anything off” in terms of new amendments to the bill, but he feels the bill has come as close to “the middle” as possible.

    “There are proponents of this bill who are not happy with some of the concessions that we made, and of course the opponents aren’t happy with the fact that we didn’t make enough,” Click said.

    For Schneider, she sees attempts to keep trans folks from getting the care they need as a negative response to success and progress the trans community has had over the last few decades. Progress that will continue, she says.

    “The momentum will continue to be on our side and there’s this pain right now, but this is just sort of the last gasp of that resistance,” Schneider said.