For trans youths, proper care is a matter of life and death
According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, through September there were 574 anti-transgender bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. Eighty-three have already passed.
More are on the way, and antitrans legislation has become a nationwide controversy and a politically hot topic.
Mental health and medical professionals who support these communities are backed by scientific research studies and decades of consensus on the care for this population, yet we continue to debate on human rights and lifesaving care.
In a systematic review of interventions aimed at reducing suicidality for trans youth, Christenson et al (2023) found that multiple studies, including large-scale studies such as the U.S. Transgender Survey (2015), demonstrate that access to gender-affirming care is effective in the reduction of suicidality.
A recent four-decade Denmark study published in the Journal of American Medical Association found that trans people were 3.5 times more likely to complete suicide, equivalent to the United States at 14 per 100,000 people (Erlangsen et al, 2023).
In sum, mental health and medical professionals have the power to save lives by providing gender-affirming care. As mentioned, research highlights that affirming youths’ gender identities and providing affirmative medical treatments decreases suicidality, anxiety and depression, and increases overall quality of life.
When this care is discussed in national political forums or on local radio talk shows, there is often the absence of transgender youths, their caregivers or the experienced trans-affirming providers present to explain what is meant by gender-affirming care for youth.
The internationally recognized standards when providing care for transgender people, through the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), offer clear and detailed guidance when providing this care for youths. Despite anti-trans propaganda, the standards of care do not involve providing hormones to young children or surgeries on genitalia or reproductive organs.
Rather, caring for transgender youths involves thorough and intentional assessment by mental health and medical providers with specialized training, working in tandem, to provide essential mental health care services and a supportive environment in which young people can make informed decisions once they reach an appropriate age.
During this time of staggering legislation targeting transgender people, it is important to practice active allyship, which includes acknowledging the harmful antitrans rhetoric and the responsibility to support the mental health of transgender youths by offering affirmative therapy.
Tristan Martin is an assistant teaching professor and Tyler Sliker is clinic director in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy at Syracuse University’s Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. They wrote this for syracuse. com.