In 2022, several states across the country implemented measures to curb performing sex change procedures on children ranging from social transitions to surgeries. Concerns grow about the efficacy and safety of these treatments.
Laurel Duggan of The Daily Caller stated: "The gender transition process for minors can include socially transitioning through a new name and pronouns of the opposite sex as well as through medical interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and various surgeries, all of which are legal for children in most U.S. states."
Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas banned medical transitions for minors. These Republican-led states argue that while most adolescents are able to overcome their gender dysphoria once they become adults, the medical interventions they undergo are irreversible. Brock Juarez, deputy chief of staff for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, commented:
We have seen a dangerous mix of politics and medicine from doctors in the Biden Administration and many of our medical societies in the United States (...) They have often traded their oath to do no harm in exchange for political gain. It has quickly become imperative for states like Florida to step up and ensure that our health care system is focused on the actual evidence for treatment, rather than relying solely on the eminence of a medical society or association.
"The scientific evidence is weak"
- Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis led a gubernatorial campaign to restrict procedures for minors in June 2022, and the Board of Medicine officially banned the procedures in October. In a letter from the state Department of Health he stated:
The scientific evidence supporting these complex medical interventions is extraordinarily weak (...) The current standards set by numerous professional organizations appear to follow a preferred political ideology instead of the highest level of generally accepted medical science. Florida must do more to protect children from politics-based medicine. Otherwise, children and adolescents in our state will continue to face a substantial risk of long-term harm.
- Alabama: the state banned sex change procedures for children, including drugs and surgeries, and warned that it would jail doctors who do not comply with the rule.
- Texas: The state Department of Family and Protective Services considered sex change procedures on minors to be child abuse.
- Tennessee: Republicans in the state introduced a bill to ban sex change procedures for children.
- Arizona: The Grand Canyon State banned medical gender transition procedures for minors, as well as male participation in women's sports.
- South Carolina: After a report demonstrated in September that a state hospital was providing transgender treatment to youth ages 4-18, Republicans added an amendment to the budget that temporarily blocked funding to cover gender transition procedures at that health center. State officials are already considering the idea of introducing legislation that would permanently ban minors from receiving sex change treatments.
Democrats vs. Republicans
State efforts to restrict sex changes for children have been met with contempt by some Democratic politicians, including President Joe Biden, who called them "discriminatory state laws targeting young transgender Americans."
However, many citizens are increasingly supportive of these restrictions. "More Republican states are growing a pair when it comes to tackling degeneracy. When dealing with demented individuals of the cultural Left, persuasion is not the answer. These people only speak the language of force, which makes stopping their degenerate activity a question of using prudential government action when they step out of line. It's high time for Republicans to stop the endless debate and start legislating instead," stated in Big League Politics.
