Toxic to Dogs and Kids
Utah Becomes the Latest State to Ban Gender-Affirming Care
It’s been quite a week: one family member had Covid, another seems to have gotten a garden-variety cold, and the four-legged one spent two days in the Doggie ER. (PSA: grapes—or in this case Pepperidge Farm raisin bread—is potentially toxic to dogs and the preventative treatment is intensive and expensive.)
I’ve been cranky for days and writing this issue—in which I mention just a few of the many outrageous, dangerous, homo/transphobic decisions that state lawmakers are making in the name of “protecting the children” or some such bulls**t—has only made me grouchier.
Lest I drag you down into the darkness of Oscar’s garbage can with me, I’m going to start with one story that is helping me remember people are not all bad and provides hope that we might make it through this onslaught of hate after all.
In November, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry set up a “Protecting Minors” tip line designed to take complaints about library books and staff. The goal of the tip line according to Landry’s Facebook announcement was to “stop the taxpayer-subsidized sexualization of children.”
The tip line was instantly flooded with complaints, but most of them were not what Landry had hoped to catch in his absurd fishing expedition. After filing a request for public records and receiving a list of all complaints made to the line in its first week of operation (5,500 pages worth), the Louisiana Illuminator determined that the vast majority of tips were spam.
Some were insults barely worthy of school yard bullies—complaints, say, about “yo mama.” Some were internet tropes like the entire script from Seinfeld’s Bee Movie, a widely panned piece of Harry Potter fan fiction, scenes from the Simpsons, and other common memes. Some complaints looked like what Landry wanted but named fake books and non-existent library branches.
Other tipsters called Landry out on his hypocrisy because in 2018 he refused to set up a tip line where people could report sexual abuse by clergy saying he didn’t have the power to prosecute them. In the same vein, some wrote to the tip line with the names of clergy members who have been accused of abuse and the addresses of churches across the state.
My favorite, though, is that hundreds of people contacted the tip line about the same book calling out its more graphic passages and expressing concern that young people might read it. That book was, of course, The Holy Bible.
It’s nice to see the people of Louisiana recognizing political posturing (Landry is running for governor in 2023) when they see it, calling out hypocrisy, and matching an absurd request with even more absurd replies.
Utah (and Others) Ban Gender Affirming Care
In the recent years we’ve seen a slew of bills trying to make issues out of what bathroom transgender people can use and what sports teams trans athletes can play on. These laws have already prevented nearly 85,000 trans youth ages 13 to 17 from participating in sports as their affirmed gender. This year we can expect a wave of new legislation inspired by transphobia and lawmakers’ desire to control what they haven’t even bothered to try and understand. In fact, according to the New York Times, Republican lawmakers have proposed more than 150 bills in at least 25 states restricting the rights of transgender people this year. (Might I remind you that this year is only 32 days old).
While some lawmakers are going after curricula and books that have the audacity to suggest gender might not be a binary set in stone at birth, others have targeted the care trans young people need and deserve.
Gender-affirming care is an all-encompassing term for the social, psychological, and medical needs of transgender young people (and adults). It covers social issues like recognizing their gender, using the right names and pronouns, and allowing them to express their gender identity in whatever ways work best. The laws, however, tend to hone in on the medical components of gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers (which can delay the development of secondary sex characteristics like larger breasts or a deeper voice), hormone therapy (which can help someone look and sound more feminine or masculine), and surgery (which can alter the chest or genitals).
We know that transgender and nonbinary youth trying to navigate our largely unwelcoming society often have mental health struggles and are more likely to attempt or commit suicide. The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey of LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth had seriously considered suicide in the previous year. We also know that gender-affirming care can help. One study found that receiving gender-affirming care—including puberty blockers and hormones—was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality over a 12-month follow-up. We also know that those young people lucky enough to have access to this care are doing so with their parents’/guardians’ knowledge and permission.
The medical community—including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—all support gender affirming care and have rejected arguments that it is harmful to young people.
Still, states across the country are looking to prevent them from getting this care. Alabama and Arkansas have already passed bans on puberty blockers and hormone therapy (though these laws are not being enforced while we wait for the outcomes of court decisions). Arizona and Tennessee have partial legislative bans which mostly cover surgery which is rare in people under 18. This weekend, Utah joined the fray.
Republican Governor Spencer Cox signed a new bill into law prohibiting gender-affirming surgery and placing an indefinite ban on hormone therapy. Cox tried to sell this ban as concern for young people’s future health with a statement that read in part:
“While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures.”
There is nothing loving or respectful about overriding the wishes of young people, their parents, and their doctors and denying them important medical care.
This was particularly upsetting coming from Cox who got a reputation as being one of the good guys last year when he vetoed a bill that would have barred transgender students from participating in girls’ sports. In a statement at the time Cox noted that there were only four kids in his state who would be impacted by that bill and that he felt their mental health was more important than whatever political agenda the legislature was advancing. He wrote:
“Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly.”
I applauded Cox at the time and suggested he showed the empathy and compassion that was missing from so many of his Republican colleagues. This time, however, while his words sounded empathetic, his actions were anything but. Kids and families will be hurt by this ban which goes into effect immediately (unless it is also blocked by the courts).
We will likely see many more bans on care for transgender young people this year. Tennessee is now considering a series of amendments which are designed to prevent parents from taking their kids out of state to receive gender affirming care. Bills in Kansas and Mississippi would ban gender-affirming care up to age 21 and lawmakers in Oklahoma and South Carolina have proposed criminalizing all gender-affirming health care up to ages 26.
Clearly, for these conservative lawmakers, anti-trans bills are no more about protecting adolescents or promoting parental rights than abortion laws are about saving babies or safeguarding women’s health.
For those who are interested in keeping up with all of the proposed anti-trans legislation, I highly recommend Erin in the Morning, a substack newsletter by Erin Reed who offers “news and discussion on trans legislation and life.”
I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I have smart friends who know more about the issues facing transgender young people than I do. I know two of the authors of this article in Preventative Medicine which suggests that clinicians have an important role to play in “advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusive policies at the institutional, local, state, and national policy level.”
I also know the 20-year-old author of this op-ed who talks about the fear that new laws could force him and others to detransition despite the fact that they are now legal adults. He concludes with this:
“The boundary between adolescence and adulthood is blurry, and stepping into this new stage of my life is hard enough without being chased by legislative transphobia that is becoming more aggressive every day. The only way forward is to reject bans on medical transition outright and to leave these decisions in the hands of those who know best: ourselves.”
Well said, Will. (And, yes, I’m still a little jealous that you’ve been published in Teen Vogue and I haven’t.)
Tennessee Rejects HIV-Prevention Money
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has about $8 million dollars in funding earmarked for Tennessee under its Ending the Epidemic Initiative but the Volunteer State (yes, that’s really its nickname) announced last week that it doesn’t want it. Apparently, Republican Governor Bill Lee was upset that some of this funding—which supports HIV testing, treatment, and prevention efforts—goes to Planned Parenthood and some goes to a transgender rights group.
Lee, who is clearly auditioning for membership in the Secret Society of Douchey GOP Governors, told reporters that he still believes HIV prevention is “very important” but that “we think we can do that better than the strings attached with the federal dollars that came our way.” He has not yet said exactly how he will pay for this homegrown plan or how it will differ from what the CDC supports, but it already seems clear that the rejection is rooted in classic HIV stigma and homophobia.
State officials have said that they would focus on HIV testing and prevention on first responders, victims of human trafficking, and mothers and children. That’s all well and good but seems to deliberately leave out many of the groups who are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic in this country including men who have sex with men, transgender individuals, and communities of color.
There are an estimated 18,208 people living with HIV in Tennessee and the number of new HIV diagnoses in the state has hovered around 730 for the last 10 years (it was lower in 2020 but that is likely the result of a pandemic-related drop in testing). The number of PrEP users (those who take medication to prevent HIV acquisition) has been steadily rising from just over 1,000 in 2016 to almost 7,000 in 2020. Still, there is much work to be done. Shelby County, which includes Memphis, is one of 57 jurisdictions singled out by the Ending the Epidemic Initiative—a program started by the Trump Administration—for having the highest number of new HIV diagnoses in the country.
Though Lee claims that the funding for HIV prevention in the state will not go down, it remains to be seen whether the programs started under the Initiative or others running throughout the state will continue. Molly Rose Quinn is the executive director of OutMemphis, the largest LGBTQ health organization in the state. Her organization received $180,000 from the CDC for HIV testing. Quinn told the Washington Post: “We’re just really freaked out, honestly. We are concerned not only for the people we serve directly, but statewide, the HIV transmission rates are alarming in this part of the country.” Quinn says that groups in Tennessee are trying to figure out if there’s a way to bypass the state and partner with local governments to get this funding.
Quinn and others are worried that Tennessee’s decision could set a precedent which would threaten the mostly bipartisan progress that has been made in fighting the HIV epidemic in recent years. When Florida’s former douchey governor Rick Scott returned $54 million in CDC money in 2017, the state saw the highest number of new infections in the country. It would not surprise anyone if a CDC-free Tennessee saw rising HIV numbers as well.