Gender Affirming Care Free Essay Example

TGNB (Transgender, Non-Binary) Youth, and their familes are living in fear of facing “child abuse” charges due to new letter issues by Gov. Greg Abbott. Gender-Affirming Care should NOT be investigated for child abuse. Gender-Affirming care can’t qualify as child abuse, government officials who made the bill have NO medical background and those who do speak out against them, gender-affirming Care saves the lives of TGNB Youth! Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter to Texas state health agencies announcing that delivering gender-affirming medical treatments to transgender youths “constitutes child abuse” under state law. It stipulated that doctors, nurses and teachers are legally now required to report parents who aid their child in receiving such care to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

For starters, Gender-Affirming Care, weather it be using pronouns or actual medication, cannot qualify as “child abuse.” The definition of child abuse as per Dictionary.com is “mistreatment of a child by a parent or guardian, including neglect, beating, and sexual molestation.”(“Child Abuse Definition & Meaning.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/child-abuse.) Gender-Affirming care is not beating or neglect. An argument could me made for sexual molestation, but that only refers to sexual actions being forced on a child, such as rape or other forms of sexual assult.A parent does not molest their child when they use the child’s preferred name and pronouns, nor do they molest the cild when they decide to let them take pubery blockers.

It has been made clear that the man who proposed this law, Gov, Gregg Abbott has zero medical background. Gov. Abbott has a BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) and a JD (Juris Doctor), impressive to be sure, but none of them are medical qualifications. Those that do have medical qualification say that Gender-Affirming Care saves TGNB youth lives, as stated by Columbia university Medical Center, “Multiple medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, endorse gender-affirming care for TGNB youth and have been vocal in their opposition to efforts that restrict access.” (Matouk , Kareen, and Melina Wald. “Gender-Affirming Care Saves Lives.” Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, 30 Mar. 2022, https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives.) If officials on the subject endorse Gender-Affirming Care, why listen to someone who has no idea what he is talking about?

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Gender-Affirming care saves TGNB Youth lives. Studies show that TGNB youth develop mental health problems, and even decide on suicide. Youth.gov states, “…they experience higher rates of mental health challenges and increased health complications arising from these challenges compared to their heterosexual peers.”(“Behavioral Health.” Behavioral Health | Youth.gov, https://youth.gov/youth-topics/lgbtq-youth/health-depression-and-suicide.) Clearly, LGBTQ+ youth are already at higher risk, but statistics get worse when suicide is mentioned. “Some recent nonrandom surveys of self-identified transgender people indicate that up to one-third reported attempting suicide at least once, with higher rates for youth and young adults than for older adults. Moreover, suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth ages 15 to 24, and LGBT youth are more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.”(“Behavioral Health.” Behavioral Health | Youth.gov, https://youth.gov/youth-topics/lgbtq-youth/health-depression-and-suicide.) These bone-chilling statistics show the true impact that denying Gender-Affirming care could have on TGNB youth. This is even backed by another quote from Youth.Gov, “This does not mean, however, that LGBT identity itself is the cause of these challenges. Rather, these higher rates may be due to bias, discrimination, family rejection, and other stressors associated with how they are treated because of their sexual identity or gender identity/expression.”(“Behavioral Health.” Behavioral Health | Youth.gov, https://youth.gov/youth-topics/lgbtq-youth/health-depression-and-suicide.).

In summary, banning Gender-Affirming care is dangerous.  Gender-Affirming care is not child abuse and the people who are trying to pass the bill are in no way educated enough to make this call to take away something that can save lives. GAC doesn’t match the description of child abuse, it is put in place by people with no medical background and is going to affect the already disturbing TGNB Youth suicide rates. GAC is a safe and needed procedure that can save lives, it shouldn’t be banned and targeted. The only thing that could be considered child abuse, is banning GAC in the first place.