The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.
One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.
Dear people who tell LGBT+ people that we shouldn’t care what some right-wing nutters think:
This is why we have to care. What they think does affect us, unfortunately.
It’s always “just ignore it, words can’t hurt you” until people listen to those words and vote/take action.
No, words matter very much, actually. In fact, I would say words, and language, is the very basis of our civilization. Without language, there would have been nothing.
I am amazed that health companies are not penalized for discrimination on which human beings they treat. Sorry, but that makes no sense.
the neat part is the American health care system always finds a new way of disappointing everyone.
what’s truly upsetting is that the few trans people that may need to go to that hospital for the fastest health care are going to find out the shitty way they’ve been blacklisted.
there is probably a good legal case against this misinformation but how many trans have the time and energy to fight backdoor politics?
there is probably a good legal case against this misinformation but how many trans have the time and energy to fight backdoor politics?
That’s why I give money to the ACLU
I wonder what the same people criticizing trans health care as “mutilation of children” think of intersex babies having genital surgery forced upon them to align their genitals with gender binary ideals.
And just before anyone has a chance to say it, trans healthcare for teens is okay despite them not being able to consent because if they don’t choose quickly then one of the options is going to be forced upon them.
It’s like a child standing on train tracks with a train speeding toward them and the child expressing that they’d like to get out of the way while people telling them “No! You’re not old enough to make that decision!”
Or how about just circumcision? How is that ok?
Intersex genital surgery and circumcision should not occur on children. Adults should be free to choose what they want done to their bodies.
Medicalization of trans children, even those who are entering puberty or beyond, is a bad idea. There needs to be more research on the safety of puberty blockers and cross sex endogenous hormones for long term medical outcomes including cancer and heart disease risks. Once you are an adult, sure, do whatever you want to your body; but there is a different ethical consideration for minors.
Literal ignorance. There are already studies.
“GnRHa treatment did not seem to have a particularly adverse effect on reproductive function or bone growth.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342775/
Puberty blockers only with social transition until age 18 are the standard of care given to the trans girl I grew up with 30 years ago. She didn’t start exogenous hormones or surgery until she was a legal adult. None of this is new and the people you’re listening to are literally just making things up.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2798007
Bet you say the same shit about vaccines.
Nope, I am provax! Got my flu and COVID shots a few weeks ago.
Ideally you will have received a series of vaccines throughout your lifetime. Anti-science people aren’t truly anti-vax: they’re anti-THIS-vax, like their 18th vaccination is somehow the poison.
Yes, I have, and I continue to urge people to wear masks, get vaccinated, I get my dogs vaccinated; I urge people to vote, I believe systemic racism exists, etc. Despite the narrative that people try to push that all those opposed to medically transitioning children are right-wing conservatives, I am not. I am also a trained scientist with a PhD from a public Ivy university. I do not think that the current zeitgeist surrounding this issue has been resolved through rigorous science and the best attempts to do no harm: to everyone.
I do not think that the current zeitgeist surrounding this issue has been resolved through rigorous science and the best attempts to do no harm: to everyone.
The problem is that in order to prevent the incredibly rare occurrence of a cisgender person mistakenly undergoing transition, you are advocating for policies that would force a far greater number of transgender people to undergo that same horror.
There lies the contradiction. How can there be more studies when everyone is fighting against it? You just said two totally opposing things.
I did not. There are many ways the application of hormones can be studied, including to populations who take them for other medical reasons and animal models. The current application of these drugs to children amounts to an wide unregulated medical experiment; typically medical studies require strong oversight from ethics boards.
There are some truly sad stories of childhood detransitioners, like Chloe Cole.
So you’re just making stuff up to get angry about. Big studies show de-transition rates are drastically below rates of regret for most common surgeries, including medically-necessary knee surgery, and cosmetic breast augmentation (which teenage cis girls get, and regret, all the time).
Many de-transtioners are just bullied out of medical care by people like yourself, only to re-transition later. The most common reasons cited for detransition were pressure from a parent (36%), transitioning was too hard (33%), too much harassment or discrimination (31%), and trouble getting a job (29%).
Supporting trans kids is mostly just about clothes/name/pronouns, and the only thing they’re offered is puberty blockers, which were used safely in cisgender children with precocious puberty for decades before people like you started distorting the facts.
You’re just another bigot spreading medical misinformation in a bad-faith attempt to block medical care for a stigmatized minority group, and you should feel bad about it. Shame.
Puberty blockers aren’t new drugs. They already have a long history of testing and documentation; we already know their relative safety.
Horrible. I don’t necessarily advocate for transition as I’m personally neutral on the issue, but I will stand up for anyone seeking medical information or service, this is no longer the cave man times where men bricked each other with boulders when someone was hurt
