Transgender and LGBTQ+ rights

[phkrause]

Trans Folks Share What They Wish Lawmakers Knew About Their Lives

Transgender folks are under attack. Plain and simple: it is dangerous to live outside the gender binary in America right now. In the most recent tally, the ACLU has tracked over 460 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country this year. 

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/transgender-people-share-for-lawmakers-to-know-trans-experience?

[phkrause]

Ron DeSantis Signs Law Allowing Trans Kids to Be Taken From Their Families

The state can now kidnap kids in Florida.

https://newrepublic.com/post/172748/ron-desantis-signs-law-allowing-trans-kids-taken-families?

[phkrause]

A look at restrictions on LGBTQ+ people in the US, and the pushback

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida law banning transgender youth from getting medical treatment is temporarily on hold after a surprise decision Tuesday by a federal judge.

https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-transgender-rights-rainbow-flag-gay-pride-bbab91ca858e13b3aca88afbbef35843?

[phkrause]

US judge blocks Florida ban on trans minor care in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, saying in a Tuesday ruling that gender identity is real and the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-desantis-florida-033556c6a4c301d9ad342c74a6410800?

[bonnie1962]

3 hours ago, phkrause said:

US judge blocks Florida ban on trans minor care in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, saying in a Tuesday ruling that gender identity is real and the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-desantis-florida-033556c6a4c301d9ad342c74a6410800?

Interesting isn't it, the many things we can deny children for their safety and well being.  This new cult like religion is not to be denied a child. The growing number of christians that seem to embrace this is sad. At least before this is promoted and forced by law let these children grow up.

 

The cover model, who is writing a children’s book called “My Daddy’s Belly: The Miracle of Male Birth,” has documented his pregnancy on a blog and social media.

 

 

[bonnie1962]

How long before this is accepted as the norm, even in many churches. What a complete, insulting farce that seemingly intelligent people pretend to believe. This is no more a man than I am a pregnant zebra. How pathetic has this country become

 

A heavily pregnant transgender man has been featured on the cover of Glamour UK’s June Pride digital issue – sparking heated backlash on social media.

Logan Brown, a 27-year-old author who was born female but now identifies as a trans male, unexpectedly became pregnant with his partner Bailey Mills, a non-binary drag performer, the magazine reported.

“One day, I had this really weird feeling; it was early in the morning and Bailey was asleep. I took a pregnancy test and it was positive,” Brown told Glamour UK’s Chloe Law.

“I’d been off testosterone for a while due to some health issues,” he said.

Logan Brown poses as the cover star of British Glamour Magazine’s digital issue celebrating Pride Month in a painted-on suit.

Glamour Magazine

“It was like my whole world just stopped. That everything, all my manhood that I’ve worked hard for, for so long, just completely felt like it was erased,” Brown continued.

 

Brown, who gave birth two weeks after the shoot, said he eventually told Bailey, “I’m pregnant,” adding that “I had a moment thinking, ‘This is all right’ – and then went into, ‘Oh, no, this isn’t good. What about my career? You’re… you’re a pregnant man!’”

The controversial cover story and shoot sparked backlash online against the publication.

“Logan’s a biological female who got pregnant, as hundreds of millions of biological females do each year… why are you presenting this as a man getting pregnant which is biologically impossible?” columnist Piers Morgan wrote on Twitter.

Former trans influencer and detransition activist Oli London blasted the publication for pushing a “woke” agenda that is “mocking women.”

“Just when you thought Woke Companies could not sink any lower—Glamour UK magazine has featured this ‘pregnant man’ on the cover to kick off Pride Month. Shame on you @GlamourMagUK for mocking women and everything they have to go through during pregnancy,” he wrote.

 

The U.K’s Glamour site, glamourmagazine.co.uk, displays Logan Brown on its front homepage.

Glamour Magazine

“I have done TikTok videos discussing the pregnancy and being open about it, and there have been some hate comments there, but I was easily able to brush those off,” he added.

The cover model, who is writing a children’s book called “My Daddy’s Belly: The Miracle of Male Birth,” has documented his pregnancy on a blog and social media.

“I said, ‘Look, here’s my blog. I wrote about it. This was an accidental pregnancy, and I’m not gonna change my identity just cause I’m pregnant,” he said about his response to a wave of critics.

“We’re real living people. And at the end of the day, I am a trans pregnant man and I do exist. No matter what anyone says, I am literally living proof.”

 

[phkrause]

Baseless anti-trans claims fuel adoption of harmful laws, two criminologists explain

It has been seven years since North Carolina made headlines for enacting a “bathroom bill” — legislation intended to prevent transgender people from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/06/06/baseless-anti-trans-claims-fuel-adoption-of-harmful-laws-two-criminologists-explain/?

A teacher’s open letter urging Gov. Edwards to veto anti-transgender legislation

I am writing to you as a Louisiana teacher and concerned citizen to urge you to veto House Bill 466 and House Bill 81, both of which target educators and pose a significant threat to the safety, privacy, and dignity of transgender youth. These bills, if signed into law, would have far-reaching consequences for both trans students and their teachers.

https://lailluminator.com/2023/06/09/a-teachers-open-letter-urging-gov-edwards-to-veto-anti-transgender-legislation/?

[bonnie1962]

5 hours ago, phkrause said:

Baseless anti-trans claims fuel adoption of harmful laws, two criminologists explain

It has been seven years since North Carolina made headlines for enacting a “bathroom bill” — legislation intended to prevent transgender people from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/06/06/baseless-anti-trans-claims-fuel-adoption-of-harmful-laws-two-criminologists-explain/?

A teacher’s open letter urging Gov. Edwards to veto anti-transgender legislation

I am writing to you as a Louisiana teacher and concerned citizen to urge you to veto House Bill 466 and House Bill 81, both of which target educators and pose a significant threat to the safety, privacy, and dignity of transgender youth. These bills, if signed into law, would have far-reaching consequences for both trans students and their teachers.

https://lailluminator.com/2023/06/09/a-teachers-open-letter-urging-gov-edwards-to-veto-anti-transgender-legislation/?

 There really is a simple solution to this whole transgender issue. How many genders are popular now? We should be able to have three bathrooms. Man, woman, transgender. That  would accommodate the nasty conservatives and christians and have a special bathroom and shower facility for transgender and those that solidly back the masquerade . Trans and their supporters can share bathrooms/showers/etc without fear of recrimination. The woman pretending to be a pregnant male can share the facilities with your young sons or grandsons. Along with the verbal support and the condemnation of those awful transphobies they would all be free to put their actions where there mouth and use the restroom and shower to their hearts content with the opposite sex.

For me I do not want my young granddaughters sharing these types of facilities. It is becoming obvious that at least for the ability to condemn conservatives there are those here that would have no problem with their wives, sisters,mothers,daughters sharing this and being exposed to the private parts of the opposite sex. Solves the problem for all that feel that way. I don't care what they do in other countries. We don't live there. That just doesnt wash. Other countries men have multiple wives. We don't promote that here.

When I see our denomination use the word "inclusive" so freely just where would they draw the line? Most of our churches are relatively small, two bathrooms. Will we become so inclusive that I could expect to me sharing the restroom with the head elder masguerading as a woman. If not why not if it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable?

[phkrause]

Garth Brooks Says His New Nashville Bar Will Be Safe for Trans People, Serve Bud Light

“Our thing is this: if you [are let] into this house, love one another. If you’re an !@@#$%^, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway,” Brooks said.

https://jezebel.com/garth-brooks-says-his-new-nashville-bar-will-be-safe-fo-1850530135?

[phkrause]

Transgender activist no longer welcome at White House after going topless at Biden event

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transgender advocate Rose Montoya is no longer welcome at White House events after posting on social media a video of herself and two others going topless for a time at Saturday’s Pride Month celebration on the South Lawn.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-transgender-topless-white-house-rose-montoya-811dc7f4473ad6b3dd43dbec7f8b5d37?

[bonnie1962]

ttps://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-outcomes/

[bonnie1962]

gender care

UNDONE: Max Lazzara lived as a transgender man for eight years before detransitioning in 2020. She says she now realizes that gender-affirming medical treatment was not appropriate for her and that it took a toll on her physical and mental health. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight

 

 

Understanding the reasons some transgender people quit treatment is key to improving it, especially for the rising number of minors seeking to medically transition, experts say. But for many researchers, detransitioning and regret have long been untouchable subjects.

By ROBIN RESPAUT, CHAD TERHUNE and MICHELLE CONLIN

 

Filed Dec. 22, 2022, noon GMT

TORONTO

For years, Dr Kinnon MacKinnon, like many people in the transgender community, considered the word “regret” to be taboo.

MacKinnon, a 37-year-old transgender man and assistant professor of social work at York University here, thought it was offensive to talk about people who transitioned, later regretted their decision, and detransitioned. They were too few in number, he figured, and any attention they got reinforced to the public the false impression that transgender people were incapable of making sound decisions about their treatment.

“This doesn’t even really happen,” MacKinnon recalled thinking as he listened to an academic presentation on detransitioners in 2017. “We’re not supposed to be talking about this.”

MacKinnon, whose academic career has focused on sexual and gender minority health, assumed that nearly everyone who detransitioned did so because they lacked family support or couldn’t bear the discrimination and hostility they encountered – nothing to do with their own regret. To learn more about this group for a new study, he started interviewing people.

In the past year, MacKinnon and his team of researchers have talked to 40 detransitioners in the United States, Canada and Europe, many of them having first received gender-affirming medical treatment in their 20s or younger. Their stories have upended his assumptions.

 

POWERFUL STORIES: Kinnon MacKinnon, an assistant professor of social work at Toronto’s York University, used to think regret among detransitioners was a nonissue. Then he started interviewing detransitioners, and what he heard changed his mind. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

Many have said their gender identity remained fluid well after the start of treatment, and a third of them expressed regret about their decision to transition from the gender they were assigned at birth. Some said they avoided telling their doctors about detransitioning out of embarrassment or shame. Others said their doctors were ill-equipped to help them with the process. Most often, they talked about how transitioning did not address their mental health problems.

In his continuing search for detransitioners, MacKinnon spent hours scrolling through TikTok and sifting through online forums where people shared their experiences and found comfort from each other. These forays opened his eyes to the online abuse detransitioners receive – not just the usual anti-transgender attacks, but members of the transgender community telling them to “shut up” and even sending death threats.

“I can’t think of any other examples where you’re not allowed to speak about your own healthcare experiences if you didn’t have a good outcome,” MacKinnon told Reuters.

The stories he heard convinced him that doctors need to provide detransitioners the same supportive care they give to young people to transition, and that they need to inform their patients, especially minors, that detransitioning can occur because gender identity may change. A few months ago, he decided to organize a symposium to share his findings and new perspective with other researchers, clinicians, and patients and their families.

Not everyone was willing to join the discussion. A Canadian health provider said it couldn’t participate, citing recent threats to hospitals offering youth gender care. An LGBTQ advocacy group refused to promote the event. MacKinnon declined to identify either, telling Reuters he didn’t want to single them out. Later, after he shared his findings on Twitter, a transgender person denounced his work as “transphobia.”

He expected his research would be a hard sell even to many of the 100 or so people from Canada, the United States and elsewhere who accepted his invitation. “I need your help,” he told the crowd that assembled in November in a York University conference room for the daylong session. “My perspectives have changed significantly. But I recognize that for many of you, you may find yourselves feeling much like I did back in 2017 – challenged, apprehensive, maybe fearful.”

Fighting words

In the world of gender-affirming care, as well as in the broader transgender community, few words cause more discomfort and outright anger than “detransition” and “regret.” That’s particularly true among medical practitioners in the United States and other countries who provide treatment to rising numbers of minors seeking to transition.

They insist, as MacKinnon once did, that detransitioning is too rare to warrant much attention, citing their own experiences with patients and extant research to support their view. When someone does detransition, they say, it’s almost never because of regret, but rather, a response to the hardship of living in a society where transphobia still runs rampant.

 

“These patients are not returning in droves” to detransition, said Dr Marci Bowers, a transgender woman, gender surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an international group that sets guidelines for transgender care. Patients with regret “are very rare,” she told Reuters. “Highest you’ll find is 1% or 1.5% of any kind of regret.”

Doctors and many transgender people say that focusing on isolated cases of detransitioning and regret endangers hard-won gains for broader recognition of transgender identity and a rapid increase in the availability of gender care that has helped thousands of minors. They argue that as youth gender care has become highly politicized in the United States and other countries, opponents of that care are able to weaponize rare cases of detransition in their efforts to limit or end it altogether, even though major medical groups deem it safe and potentially life-saving.

“Stories with people who have a lot of anger and regret” about transitioning are over-represented in the media, and they don’t reflect “what we are seeing in the clinics,” said Dr Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. He also helped write the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement in support of gender-affirming care. Detransitioning is a “very invalidating term for a lot of people who are trans and gender-diverse,” Rafferty said.

Some people do detransition, however, and some do so because of regret. The incidence of regret could be as low as clinicians like Bowers say, or it could be much higher. But as Reuters found, hard evidence on long-term outcomes for the rising numbers of people who received gender treatment as minors is very weak.

Dr Laura Edwards-Leeper, a clinical psychologist in Oregon who treats transgender youths and a co-author of WPATH’s new Standards of Care for adolescents and children, said MacKinnon’s work represents some of the most extensive research to date on the reasons for detransitioning and the obstacles patients face. She said the vitriol he has encountered illustrates one reason so few clinicians and researchers are willing to broach the subject.

“People are terrified to do this research,” she said.

For this article, Reuters spoke to 17 people who began medical transition as minors and said they now regretted some or all of their transition. Many said they realized only after transitioning that they were homosexual, or they always knew they were lesbian or gay but felt, as adolescents, that it was safer or more desirable to transition to a gender that made them heterosexual. Others said sexual abuse or assault made them want to leave the gender associated with that trauma. Many also said they had autism or mental health issues such as bipolar disorder that complicated their search for identity as teenagers.

Echoing what MacKinnon has found in his work, nearly all of these young people told Reuters that they wished their doctors or therapists had more fully discussed these complicating factors before allowing them to medically transition.

No large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender care as adolescents to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning. The studies that have been done have yielded a wide range of findings, and even the most rigorous of them have severe limitations. Some focus on people who began treatment as adults, not adolescents. Some follow patients for only a short period of time, while others lose track of a significant number of patients.

“There’s a real need for more long-term studies that track patients for five years or longer,” MacKinnon said. “Many detransitioners talk about feeling good during the first few years of their transition. After that, they may experience regret.”

In October, Dutch researchers reported results of what they billed as the largest study to date of continuation of care among transgender youths. In a review of prescription drug records, they found that 704, or 98%, of 720 adolescents who started on puberty blockers before taking hormones had continued with treatment after four years on average. The researchers couldn’t tell from the records why the 16 had discontinued treatment.

Gender-care professionals and transgender-rights advocates hailed the 98% figure as evidence that regret is rare. However, the authors cautioned that the result may not be replicated elsewhere because the adolescents studied had undergone comprehensive assessments, lasting a year on average, before being recommended for treatment. This slower, methodical approach is uncommon at many U.S. gender clinics, where patient evaluations are typically done much faster and any delay in treatment, or “gatekeeping,” is often believed to put youth at risk of self-harm because of their distress from gender dysphoria

FEAR FACTOR: Dr Laura Edwards-Leeper says the backlash researchers risk is one reason they are reluctant to examine the reasons for detransitioning. Laura Edwards-Leeper/Handout via REUTERS

 

 

[bonnie1962]

Thankfully some care enough and don't blindly promote the liberal view

 

Her original gender-care providers at the University of Minnesota declined to comment. In a statement, the university’s medical school said “gender-affirming care involves a carefully thought-out care plan between a patient and their multidisciplinary team of providers.”

Lazzara recently found the before-and-after pictures of her torso on the website of the surgeon who performed her mastectomy in 2013. She had given him permission to post the images because he was proud of the outcome. Seeing her body as it once was stunned her. “I saw my breasts before I got them removed. That’s my 16-year-old body,” she said. “I had no ability at that age to be in my own body in my own way.”

Since revealing she detransitioned, Lazzara said, many in the online transgender community who embraced her a decade ago have distanced themselves from her, and she has received hateful messages on social media. Now, when she sees someone come out online as detransitioned, she sends them a private message of support. “I know how lonely and alienating it can be,” she said.

“Shut up,” detransitioner

Transgender people are frequently subjected to harassment, abuse and threats online. And as Lazzara’s experience shows, so are detransitioners. In recent posts on TikTok, users took turns telling detransitioners to “shut up,” and mocked, attacked and blamed them for perpetuating harm on the transgender community.

Diana Salameh, a transgender woman, film director and comedian from Mississippi, posted a TikTok video on Oct. 1 to “all the so-called transgender detransitioners out there.” Detransitioners “are just giving fuel to the fire to the people who think that no trans person should exist,” she said in the video. “You people who jumped the gun, made wrong decisions that you should actually feel embarrassed for, but you want to blame somebody else.” In closing, she said, “I think you all need to sit down and shut the [censored] up!”

Salameh told Reuters she posted the video because detransitioners spread the false idea “that nobody can be happy after transition,” and right-wing opponents of youth gender care are using their stories “to fuel their agendas.”

Earlier this year, K.C. Miller, a 22-year-old in Pennsylvania who was assigned female at birth, began wrestling with how she felt about her medical transition.

Miller initially sought treatment for gender dysphoria when she was 16 from the adolescent gender clinic at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In September 2017, Miller met with Dr Linda Hawkins, a counselor and co-founder of the hospital’s gender clinic, for the first of two 90-minute visits. During that session, Miller told Hawkins she had wanted to be a Boy Scout as a kid and “always felt like a tomboy,” according to Hawkins’ notes in Miller’s medical records, reviewed by Reuters. Miller also told Reuters that as a young girl she was attracted to other girls, but didn’t feel she could pursue those relationships because her family’s church didn’t accept homosexuality.

Miller’s case had further complications. Hawkins noted that Miller had an extensive history of sexual abuse by a family member starting at age 4, and that as a result, Miller had already been diagnosed with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Miller had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 10 days because of suicidal thoughts in late 2016.

While in the hospital, Miller told her mother she wished she wasn’t a girl “because then the abuse would not have happened,” Hawkins wrote. Elsewhere in the records, Hawkins noted that “Mom expresses concern that the desire to be male and not female may be a trauma response.”

Miller, her mother and Hawkins met again seven weeks later. Miller had continued to have suicidal thoughts. She had taken medication for depression and anxiety and was working with a therapist, Hawkins noted. By the end of that second visit, Hawkins concluded that, “in spite of” Miller’s trauma from abuse, the 16-year-old “has been insistent, persistent and consistent” in thinking of herself as male.

Hawkins referred Miller to a local gender clinic to receive testosterone. Miller got a mastectomy about six months later.

But medical treatment didn’t offer the relief she sought. Her body started to change due to the hormones, yet Miller didn’t feel better. Instead, she cycled through bouts of depression. She passed as a young man, but “something felt off. It felt like I was putting on an act.”

Then Miller began reading the stories posted online by young detransitioners. Parts of their experiences resonated with her. “I absolutely would not have done this if I could go back and do it again,” Miller told Reuters. “I would have worked through therapy and would be living my life as a lesbian.”

Miller said Hawkins should have done a more thorough evaluation of all of Miller’s mental health issues and shouldn’t have recommended treatment so quickly.

Her mother, who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy, told Reuters that providers assured her that Miller’s distress was related to her gender identity and that gender-affirming care would reduce the risk of suicide.

[phkrause]

As a transgender woman, a New York City subway icon finds her own voice

CRANFORD, N.J. (AP) — The voice is familiar to the millions who ride New York City’s subways, its deep and resonant tone ringing through tunnels and across the tracks. For more than a decade, Bernie Wagenblast has lent that voice to automated announcements alerting passengers to train arrivals and politely directing people to “please stand away from the platform edge.”

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-pride-wagenblast-subways-genderaffirming-f3f185e9a606e2340905e3d7f765e8b7?

[bonnie1962]

I wonder if those that are so protective of wanting gender affirming medical care provided for such young children have a conscience?? The minions keep putting the demand in everyone's face

June 24, 2023

Transgender Lawsuits Reveal Horrors of Procedures

By Robyn Dolgin

 

 

Kayla Lovdahl is the perfect test case as a 13-year-old who was approved for “transgender surgery:” She could not conceive, at the time, of the possibility of suffering a lifetime of disfigurement and chronic pain.

Ms. Lovdahl, now 18, has retained an attorney, Charles Limandri, who has employed such emotionally charged words as “barbaric and cruel” to describe the medical team’s actions in causing his client deep physical and emotional wounds.

Essential to his case is the claim that Lovdahl was hopelessly ignorant of the statistical reality that nearly half of trans surgeries result in serious and life-threatening complications. How can a 13-year-old grasp what it means to remove perfectly healthy breasts (in female-to-male transition)?

Sanitizing the language, Lovdahl was informed she could opt for “top” and/or “bottom surgery.” She had never heard of the term “double mastectomy” as she was wheeled into surgery for what the medical team had described as “top surgery.” Her harrowing surgical experience was spared “bottom” mutilation.

The four doctors named in the lawsuit, associated with Oakland-based hospital Kaiser Permanente, aren’t just being accused of medical malpractice. Attorney LiMandri will assert the physicians are subjecting children to an “indoctrination” process in which they apply undue influence as part of today’s wave of transgender activism.

 

A crucial element to the case is the perfunctory evaluation his client was administered before authorizing the “injurious” protocols. “Off label puberty blockers and powerful male hormone drugs” were prescribed after a one-time 75-minute evaluation, along with approving surgical options, according to the attorney. The evaluation took place when Lovdahl was age 12, having decided at age 11 she was a boy.

This is becoming a commonplace complaint lodged by many of the children (now young adults) who claim they never understood the consequences of their actions.

The romanticized notion of the procedures to achieve a “different gender” typically fails to inform the patient of possibly confronting years of chronic pain, requiring additional surgeries to address the previous procedures, and in cases (female-to-male) implanting an inflatable prosthetic penis that (oftentimes) malfunctions.

Many of the same medical complaints are frequently voiced by adolescents attempting the opposite crossover. In the case of male-to-female, the patients are left with a stump where the penis was formerly located, having endured an incision from the rectum to the urethra and prostate to create a tunnel that reconfigures the body into a “new vagina.”

Surgeons spend little to no time explaining the possibility of complicated infections, enduring difficulty in urinating or destroying hopes of physical intimacy. And most patients are blind-sided by the pain having not fully understood the consequences of multiple incisions altering a complex network of tissues, nerves, and muscles.

 

Such graphic details are left out of the warm-fuzzy discussions adolescents have with their therapists about leading a happier life. Lovdahl has already transitioned back to her birth sex.

Many of the retransitioning advocates are coming forward to offer a different and more realistic view of the “horrors” involved with “gender reassignment.” As part of the advocacy work, some are allowing themselves to be photographed revealing post-surgical body parts with the implied message of “don’t let this happen to you.” Such horrific photographs expose extensive scarring from skin grafts (mostly skin removed from forearms to create a penis) and extreme disfigurement from pockets of fat left behind in “top surgeries.”

 approximately 16 percent of the young population claiming gender dysphoria. But that number is growing, along with thousands of children being indoctrinated into the belief they have gender options to choose from.

This is all part of the “premeditated” “indoctrination” process children are now being subjected to, Limandri reports. “If a child is 7, 8 or 9 and they want to imitate their favorite superhero’s gender… they can receive puberty blockers and life-altering surgery,” Limandri says. This is the first time we’re witnessing adults in authoritative positions advising children “You’re in the wrong body… If you do this you’re courageous (and) you’ll be happier than ever before,” Limandri alleges in the lawsuit.

In this case, the finality of Lovdahl’s procedure still fails to address the complex psychological issues she experienced as a pre-teen. Her attorney alleges she was part of the “conveyor belt” of dangerous procedures now part of standardized care at a growing number of gender clinics:

“There is not another area of medicine where doctors will surgically remove a perfectly healthy body part… based simply on the young patient’s wishes.”

In a tragic twist, Susanne Watkins, clinical psychologist, encouraged Lovdahl to attend (LGBQT) pride events, but the 12-year-old claimed she didn’t wish to attend the events. And she “didn’t feel pride,” according to the lawsuit. Watkins is clinical director of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals’ Transgender Clinic, in one of the most liberal regions of the country.

This may explain the extreme pressure parents claim they are subject to at the time of authorizing such potentially harmful procedures. Many are told they have a choice between a “dead daughter” or a “live son” (or the reverse) clearly suggesting the child is at a high risk of suicide, according to the lawsuit.

Many parents -- in different parts of the country -- have reported the same level of manipulation to sway them into signing off on procedures that have left them feeling deeply conflicted.

[phkrause]

‘Lobbying for my right to exist’: US Senate panel examines how states target trans kids

WASHINGTON — Harleigh Walker wants U.S. senators to understand she is a typical 16-year-old girl.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/06/24/lobbying-for-my-right-to-exist-us-senate-panel-examines-how-states-target-trans-kids/?

[phkrause]

Families and doctors sue Texas over its new ban on transgender care for minors

A group of Texas families and doctors have sued in state court seeking to block the state’s new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/families-doctors-sue-texas-new-ban-transgender-care-101222847?

[phkrause]

Pope tells transgender person: 'God loves us as we are'

VATICAN CITY, July 25 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has told a young transgender person that "God loves us as we are", his latest outreach gesture towards the LGBT community.

https://www.reuters.com/world/pope-tells-transgender-person-god-loves-us-we-are-2023-07-25/?

[phkrause]

Parents have no right to allow their children’s gender transition, Republicans say

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on a panel for limited federal government argued this week that parents should not be allowed to let their transgender children have access to gender-affirming care.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/07/29/parents-have-no-right-to-allow-their-childrens-gender-transition-republicans-say/?

[phkrause]

Pediatricians’ group reaffirms support for gender-affirming care amid growing state restrictions

The American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its support for gender-affirming medical care for transgender children on Thursday, even as the treatments face a growing push for bans and restrictions from Republican lawmakers across the U.S.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-genderaffirming-care-pediatricians-176134f1b6ee1f2c146fef9a40cf351e?

[phkrause]

Transgender rights targeted in executive order signed by Oklahoma governor

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday directed state agencies to use narrow definitions of “female” and “male,” in the latest attack on transgender rights in a state that already has laws targeting bathroom use, health care and sports teams for transgender people.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-rights-oklahoma-governor-67dc0c4a9d769066ccb1b9835c71449f?

[phkrause]

Targeting Trans Kids, Florida School Board Requires Parental Approval for Nicknames

The Orange County Public Schools’ anti-trans policies are extreme, even in Ron DeSantis’s Florida.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/florida-school-board-anti-trans-policy/?

[phkrause]

Texas court temporarily pauses ban on gender-affirming care for minors

A judge in Texas has temporarily halted the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in a win for the parents and LGBTQ advocates who challenged the law.

https://local.newsbreak.com/texas-state/3135790228653-texas-court-temporarily-pauses-ban-on-gender-affirming-care-for-minors?

ps:Here are some interesting facts I found out about this:

https://www.factcheck.org/2023/05/scicheck-young-children-do-not-receive-medical-gender-transition-treatment/

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/11/fact-check-what-does-law-say-about-children-and-sex-reassignment-surgery/984431007/

[phkrause]

“Where Is There to Go?” He Needs Gender-Affirming Surgery, but His State Is Fighting to Deny Coverage.

In the spring of 2022, Hann Henson accepted a job as a communications specialist for a North Carolina school district. Not long after his insurance kicked in, he pored over the hundred-page booklet outlining the state health plan for district employees.

https://www.propublica.org/article/north-carolina-gender-affirming-care-coverage-federal-appeal?

Coverage of Gender-Affirming Care Is an Unequal Patchwork

Lawsuits brought by transgender employees show how state agencies fight against paying for gender-affirming care for some people while others are covered.

https://www.propublica.org/article/gender-affirming-care-coverage-lawsuits?

This Georgia County Spent $1 Million to Avoid Paying for One Employee’s Gender-Affirming Care

When a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia’s Houston County sought surgery as part of her gender transition, local officials refused to change the department’s health insurance plan to cover it, citing cost as the primary reason.

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-county-spent-one-million-fighting-coverage-gender-affirming-care?

[phkrause]

Trans university employees could be punished for using bathrooms that align with gender identity

Following the passage of a law targeting transgender people’s use of bathrooms, the entity overseeing public universities in Florida is determining a rule that would punish employees for using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/09/20/trans-university-employees-could-be-punished-for-using-bathrooms-that-align-with-gender-identity/?