Alabama can enforce a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, appeals court rules
Alabama can enforce a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, appeals court rules
A federal appeals court has ruled that Alabama can begin enforcing a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender children. The 11th U.S.
Alabama can begin immediately enforcing a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender people under 19, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, granting the state’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement of the 2022 law.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that the injunction should be vacated, but the decision had been effectively on hold while families with transgender children asked the full appellate court to reconsider the decision. The Thursday order will allow the ban to take effect while the full court decides whether it will revisit the decision.
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Section 6. Except as provided for in Section 4, nothing in this act shall be construed as limiting or preventing psychologists, psychological technicians, and master's level licensed mental health professionals from rendering the services for which they are qualified by training or experience involving the application of recognized principles, methods, and procedures of the science and profession of psychology and counseling. Section 7. Nothing in this section shall be construed to establish a new or separate standard of care for hospitals or physicians and their patients or otherwise modify, amend, or supersede any provision of the Alabama Medical Liability Act of 1987 or the Alabama Medical Liability Act of 1996, or any amendment or judicial interpretation of either act.
If affirming care means socially affirming as well as medical (drugs / surgery) then the law isn’t entirely against affirming care because it doesn’t mention anything against social affirmation and explicitly allows for psychologists to make appropriate decisions in that realm.
I’m not saying I’m for this law, but it is important to be precise about what the law is. It’s actually not a very long read.
okay let's be clear then: its a bad law that's not backed up by any reputable medical institutions, and is going to hurt trans kids.
Not the most absurd law ever. It just states that minors can’t undergo life altering surgeries or take medicine with potentially irreversible effects (that apparently isn’t even approved by the FDA?). It says nothing about what children can or can’t wear. Only thing that to me makes me raise an eyebrow is the whole “children can’t be encouraged to hide this dysphoria from their parents by teachers”.
I would also like to see the studies cited, but if they’re valid, then the law is for the most part reasonable
Except there are plenty of life altering surgeries cis teens routinely undergo, even cosmetic surgeries, and nobody seems particularly worried about them. Moreover, these laws usually carve out exemptions for cosmetic surgery on intersex infants’ genitals… I guess permanently altering a child’s genitals is fine as long as they can’t ask for it.
As for medication with “potentially irreversible effects,” that’s true of puberty too. Forcing a trans teen to undergo natal puberty is forcing them to acquire secondary sex characteristics that either take expensive treatments or surgery to reverse, or are irreversible. Puberty in general makes irreversible changes well before someone is 18. Being uncomfortable that trans teens exist and wanting to kick that can down the road until they’re legal adults doesn’t mean that’s actually what is developmentally or medically appropriate.
As for the FDA thing, it sounds like you’re referring to off label usage. Every drug has them. It doesn’t mean nobody knows what it does, puberty blocking drugs still block puberty whether you use them in a trans teen or a kid with precocious puberty.
First, it all, I was supposing that cosmetic surgeries weren’t allowed in minors (except for those yk, house burned, skin melted situations).
Secondly, how reasonable the law is depends wholly on the studies that were not explicitly quoted and whether there is a significant percentage of people who undergo these treatments during puberty and then regret it.
And the law explicitly states “this use of puberty blockers for gender non conforming children is experimental and not FDA-approved”. Which is legalese I think for “FDA didn’t make studies checking whether those drugs are effective in treating gender dysphoria”
Fun fact: there’s no force of nature preventing Republicans from writing things that are just untrue when they’re writing laws.
Secondly, how reasonable the law is depends wholly on the studies that were not explicitly quoted
That is also related to my fun fact! They do not have studies that show transition is dangerous to youth, and in fact every repeatable, peer reviewed study on the effects of transition on trans youth have shown mental health and wellbeing improvements with transition and the opposite with not being allowed to transition.
and whether there is a significant percentage of people who undergo these treatments during puberty and then regret it.
Regret for transition related surgeries are consistently not just low, but an order of magnitude lower than regret for other surgeries. It’s so low that scientists have started studying why it’s so freakin’ low, and believe it may be because trans people are incredibly informed about what surgeries they’re getting, incredibly motivated to get them, and that they aren’t associated with a negative health problem like cancer.
Hormones are even lower risk, because if you don’t like it you just stop taking it. It’s not like surgery where it’s done in one go.
And to be clear, the only transition related surgery that happens on under 18s is top surgery (the same as gynecomastia surgery cis boys get).
Which is legalese I think for “FDA didn’t make studies checking whether those drugs are effective in treating gender dysphoria”
They’re trying to make accepting trans kids seem more dangerous than conversion therapy. This entire law revolves around making it as difficult as possible for families with trans youth to exist in the state, and it uses the power of the state to push misinformation over the protests of actual medical professionals.
Have you heard of Alabama leading the pack in protecting a vulnerable minority, ever? Do you think Alabama republicans have finally found a segment of the LGBT population they like? This is part of a concerted push involving hundreds of bills targeting trans people. They want this shit to go to SCOTUS to criminalize being trans in public and make it as difficult as possible even for adults to get transition related care.
you should definitely just take all this at face value and not look into it further.
Republicans famously never lie, especially when it comes to minorities they don't like.
hope this helps 🙏