Biden Officials Pushed to Remove Age Limits for Trans Surgery, Documents Show
Biden Officials Pushed to Remove Age Limits for Trans Surgery, Documents Show
Newly released emails from an influential group issuing transgender medical guidelines indicate that U.S. health officials lobbied to remove age minimums for surgery in minors because of concerns over political fallout.
i fucking hate that its always surgeries in the headlines when 99% of pre pubescent trans care is hormonal medication, as stated in the article. let the kids have the right puberty ffs
Classic nyt transphobia.
Well, I'm trans woman but I'm not sure the article is as cut and dry as that? There is good and bad being covered here.
one member wrote. “I need someone to explain to me how taking out the ages will help in the fight against the conservative anti-trans agenda.”
Because any recommendations will be taking as a rule and it depends a lot. Like literally at any age is blockers is blockers fine and HRT seems reasonable at the 11-12ish range when cis puberty would start. But when it comes to top and bottom, well it actually depends a lot. My GF ran in to issues getting BA's purely because of her smaller torso frame. Likewise I know Jazz had difficulties with bottom surgery because she started lockers early enough that her existing genitals didn't have much material to "work with". Work around with using leg tissue is great, but that really seems like a case by case basis. Defiantly pre puberty of course, but post some height growth. The level of dysphoria should also play a factor as well, especially if it currently a self harm risk.
There are some physic limb properational limitations for some surgeries that can't neatly fit in to an "age X" rubric. Saying that Y can't be done until X becomes a hard rule that causes harm.
As always, the true answer is not letting politicians decide bodily autonomy. These choices need to be made between patient and doctor, for all the same reasons only a doctor and patient should decide on reproductive rights.
Admiral Levine “was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to care for trans youth and maybe adults, too. Apparently the situation in the U.S.A. is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them.”
And to the Biden admistrations credit, they are literally trying to exactly that. There is a lot of nuisance here that tragically bigots have no interest in actually engaging with.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The email excerpts released this week shed light on possible reasons for those guideline changes, and highlight Admiral Levine’s role as a top point person on transgender issues in the Biden administration.
One excerpt from an unnamed member of the WPATH guideline development group recalled a conversation with Sarah Boateng, then serving as Admiral Levine’s chief of staff: “She is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in D.C., and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care.
The excerpts were filed by James Cantor, a psychologist and longstanding critic of gender treatments for minors, who used them as evidence that the international advisory group, referred to as WPATH, was making decisions based on politics, not science, in developing the guidelines.
On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on youth gender medicine, which makes it a felony for doctors to provide any gender-related treatment to minors, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mark Del Monte, chief executive of the American Academy of Pediatrics, pointed out that the medical group, which represents 67,000 U.S. pediatricians, had not endorsed the international guidelines because it already had its own in place.
The original article contains 1,318 words, the summary contains 249 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!