[This column, contributed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), appears in the July/August 2024 print issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Doctors who care for transgender youth follow well-established standards developed through decades of clinical study. It is developmentally appropriate treatment requiring informed consent of parents, informed assent by the patient, and involving in-depth screening by a multidisciplinary care team.
Every major U.S. medical association recognizes this as safe, best practice, and the only proven effective care for transgender adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria.
Parents have shared in statehouses and courthouses how receiving the doctor-recommended care they need enables their children to live happier, healthier lives, and the harmful impact of taking care away.
Yet, 25 states have banned standard-of-care medical care for transgender adolescents. 36% of transgender youth now live in states where the doctor-recommended healthcare they need is illegal. (LGBTQ MAP). Florida and Ohio have also moved to restrict how transgender adults can access healthcare.
Bans are pushed by politicians, not doctors or parents. They don’t make healthcare safer for anyone, or support parents navigating the best options to aid their children’s physical and mental wellbeing. These are blanket bans that take away parents’ ability to make important decisions about their kids’ health and deny transgender adolescents treatment that helps them thrive.
GLAD is challenging Alabama and Florida bans in federal court and supporting our partners in other states. When judges hear testimony from medical experts, parents, and transgender people, they have ruled against these bans. But as States pursue appeals into appellate courts receptive to backtracking on a range of civil rights protections, we are seeing the impact of these laws taking effect.
Hospitals and practice groups across the South and Midwest have been forced to stop care, clinics have closed, some pharmacies have stopped filling prescriptions. A new Campaign for Southern Equality reportshows families needing to spend up to 18 hours driving or pay airfare and hundreds in related travel costs, in addition to time off work and school, to make one healthcare appointment for their child. That’s in addition to costs associated with starting at a new practice and the time it takes to find and secure an appointment. Moving incurs its own costs, and means uprooting your children’s lives – something families shouldn’t have to do simply to provide their child healthcare.
The harmful impacts go beyond states where care is banned. Increased demand leads to longer wait times elsewhere, and uncertainty about the reach of bans creates a chilling effect on healthcare institutions. Some ban states are also attempting to track care residents receive. Texas AG Paxton sought the medical records of Texas youth who received care from a Seattle hospital. Such efforts are aimed at intimidating families seeking care for their children and providers who serve them.
The good news is 13 states and D.C. have passed laws shielding providers of transgender healthcare – as well as reproductive healthcare which is under attack by the same political forces – from the hostile overreach of these bans.
GLAD has worked alongside providers, LGBTQ+, and reproductive equity advocates to pass such laws in Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island. These shield laws are carefully drafted to align with constitutional requirements, federal law, and a state’s statutory structure.
These protections are urgent, because of the number of states banning essential care and because bans and the disinformation circulated to support them are designed to have a chilling effect on healthcare providers and institutions everywhere. The tactics being employed by opponents are also becoming more concerning.
Out-of-state opponents of Maine’s LD 227 used a campaign of intimidation and disinformation about transgender people to try and stop the bill. Bomb threats were called into the statehouse and the homes of sponsors. Attorneys General from 16 ban states threatened legal action if Maine passed a law protecting healthcare within its own borders.
GLAD, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Maine medical providers and others provided accurate information to legislators to counter the false, cruel rhetoric being used against the bill. Maine’s Attorney General responded that the state has every legal authority “to decide what access to healthcare people in Maine receive, free from interference by out-of-state actors.” Thankfully, a majority of legislators saw through the fear and falsehoods. LD 227 was signed by Governor Mills in April. In further good news, Rhode Island followed suit with Governor McKee signing that state’s Health Care Shield Law in June.
If we want access to quality, science-based healthcare and the ability for each of us — not the government — to make personal medical decisions for ourselves and our families, we have to protect it — in the courts, in our legislatures, and by making sure providers can practice the medicine they are trained to deliver without hostile, politically-driven interference.
Read more at glad.org/healthcare
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