Opinion: The Truth About Being a Transgender Kid in America

[Jessica_Rose]

Opinion: The Truth About Being a Transgender Kid in America

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/opinion-the-truth-about-being-a-transgender-kid-in-america/ar-AA1rK7uV?ocid=windirect&cvid=7de670e4e5504113829e142a6d1abd5c&ei=61

Opinion by Nico Lang (5 Oct 2024)

It's impossible to measure the human cost of the war being waged on transgender kids, the homes and communities destroyed, and the dreams indefinitely delayed. For a transgender child taking their first steps into the person they were meant to be, few blows are more devastating than losing access to the medical treatments that help them become themselves.

Although critics of transgender medicine allege that the field is experimental and its benefits unproven, study after study has shown that the impacts of gender-affirming care for transgender youth can be profound.

When administered safely and in the hands of medical professionals, treatments like HRT and puberty suppressors have been linked to drastically lower rates of suicidal ideation, depression, and anxiety. Even knowing that they can access gender-affirming care—that it exists and is available when they need it—is associated with improved mental health outcomes for transgender minors.

Anti-LGBTQIA+ lawmakers have been able to dehumanize transgender people and their communities through the power of omission. By excluding transgender kids from the story of their own lives and denying them agency, that silencing permits politicians to fill the void with misinformation, fear, and lies, to scare the public into discriminating against children. I hope my book, in some small way, to return their voices to them, to restore a stolen power.