Protect Trans Youth
The children are our future. This is a sentiment that we, collectively, have shared time and time again, through conversation, narrative, speech, song, and countless other cultural artifacts throughout American culture. However, the future of transgender children in the United States is one of tenuous contention if the last year is any indication. In 2021 alone, 22 states proposed legislation that effectively bans best practice medical care for transgender/gender-nonconforming youth.
According to Movement Advancement Project, there are an estimated 64,700 trans youth, ages 13–17, living in the states affected by these bigoted policies (For additional info, see: https://www.lgbtmap.org/2021-spotlight-health-care-bans). Denial of basic human rights, including access to quality healthcare and affirming human services that would facilitate thriving at what can only be seen as an increasingly delicate and critical point in their personal development, is not only a travesty but a crime against the very ethics of not only the medical profession but the American democratic ethos. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or so we have been told, right?
As a consequence of denial of such healthcare that is tantamount for a healthy transition period from youth into adolescence, there is bound to be an increase in the potentiality for suicide attempts in this population that is perched delicately on the precipice of both transphobic retribution from the government and a desire to simply be who they were born to be. As of 2020, 52% of transgender/nonbinary youth in the U.S. have contemplated suicide. Being told that seeking healthcare to affirm and further develop the body that they so desperately desire for their physical, mental, and emotional health is not only immoral but in cases such as we saw this week in Texas, potentially against the law, is not only a tragic misstep in judiciary judgement on the behalf of the state but also a massive infringement upon the human rights of thousands of youth in the United States (For more info on the situation in Texas, see https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/greg-abbott-transgender-children-health-care-ban.html; See this Forbes article for more information regarding trans youth suicide in the U.S.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2021/05/19/terrible-time-for-trans-youth-new-survey-spotlights-suicide-spike---and-hope/?sh=7eaa2c53716e).
In the end, it is important to remember that there is a distinct difference between “sex” and “gender”. They are not the same thing. Constantly conflated together but distinctly different. Sex is an a question of anatomy. Gender is a socially constructed identity and expression. It exists on a spectrum. It is capable of fluctuation at varying points throughout the lifespan. Education is imperative; not just for parents and youth who may be experiencing questions of gender identity, but also for the public, friends, families, educators, legislators, government officials, the clergy, and basically anyone else who exists in any semblance of a social environment. Diversity of the human condition is something we are just beginning to fully grasp — with a cursory glance at Google — there are estimates of some 20-plus gender identities in use in cultural practice across the globe. It will only be a matter of time before this already complex situation grows again. In the meantime, let these children live their lives. They are not bothering anyone. Surveillance of gender by the State is a form of state-sanctioned violence, if nothing else. That is nothing to be proud of — for anyone in the U.S. — if anything, it is a reason to be ashamed, angry, or both.
