I expect we will soon see at least 15 states attempting to criminalize or otherwise ban health care for trans young people (under 18, and sometimes, under 21!). These bills are incredibly, dangerous, misguided & part of a larger project to enforce binary norms of sex difference.

The bill language is different in every state but the goal is to punish parents and doctors who affirm trans youth people - and ultimately, to hurt trans youth and try to stop us (trans people) from being trans.

Lawmakers and other supporters of these efforts attempt to cast treatment for trans people as "dangerous" "experimental" and "unethical". None of this is true. Every major medical association in the US supports this case. The American Academy of Pediatrics...

The American Medical Association, The Endocrine Society, The Pediatric Endocrine Society, The American Psychological Association, and more. What this is about is taking agency away from youth and criminalizing autonomy and the provision of care.

These same bills have exemptions for non-consensual surgeries on youth with intersex traits. While they claim to be concerned about consent, they simultaneously permit doctors to perform non-consensual surgeries on intersex infants.

This has everything to do with enforcing dangerous norms of binary sexual difference, cultivating fear in trans people and our bodies, and seeking to regulate the bodies of all people to align with patriarchal and white supremacist norms of how men and women should look & behave.

Should these laws pass, young people who rely on ongoing care will have that care immediately cut off. Youth who experience devastating dysphoria will be forced into their endogenous puberty. Life-saving treatment will become a crime.

The risks to trans youth are devastating. And not only that these bills target doctors and other health care professionals, disrupt their care, and threaten to put them in prison in the middle of a pandemic. We have a lot of work to do over the next few months.