Alabama hurting transgender teens
If, as it seems, Republican-led states are in competition for the most harmful way to limit the rights of transgender youths, Alabama would surely get the gold medal.
Not only did Alabama keep pace with such formidable rivals as Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas by copying and combining the worst anti-transgender measures from those states, but it also came up with the added flourish of attaching criminal penalties to parents and licensed caregivers who provide counseling and support to transitioning transgender youths.
Alabama became the first state in the country to do so, and, sadly — given how Republicans have made attacking transgender people part of their political playbook — it probably won’t be the last.
The Alabama legislature on Thursday, the last day of its session, pushed through an extreme package of bills.
One makes it a felony for parents and health-care professionals to provide gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone treatments to transgender minors, setting penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
Another bars transgender children from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity and limits classroom discussions on gender and sexual orientation — copying what critics have dubbed the “don’t say gay” measure recently adopted in Florida.
“In one breathtakingly cruel and cowardly day, the Alabama legislature passed the single most anti-transgender legislative package in history,” said Cathryn Oakley of the Human Rights Campaign. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, wasted no time signing the measures into law — in contrast with the sense and decency shown by her Republican counterpart in Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, who vetoed a similar measure.
Hutchinson called the bill a vast government overreach that allows lawmakers to get involved in decisions that should be between physicians and parents. Arkansas lawmakers overrode the veto, but a federal court stayed its implementation after the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of four transgender youths and their families as well as two doctors. Lawsuits have already been filed against Alabama’s law.
Those who pushed the cynically named Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act have made false claims about young people being subjected to drastic and life-altering treatments based on hasty judgments that they will later regret. In reality, existing medical guidelines generally do not recommend genital gender-affirming surgeries before a child reaches age 18. Puberty blockers or hormone treatments, prescribed after long discussions between parents and their children and between families and their doctors, have been found to be safe and beneficial. Research has found that those who received gender-affirming hormones during their teenage years had significantly lower odds of suicidal thoughts and mental distress than those who wanted it but did not receive it. The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend gender-affirming care for transgender youths.
In the days since Alabama’s enactment of the legislation, advocates for transgender rights have reported a flood of calls from panicked parents of transgender children.
What these parents want — all they want — is for their sons and daughters to be alive, happy and safe. This universal desire of parents should not be made a crime.