That was a great essay and I can empathise with you as I was in the same situation myself. After the covid lockdowns my son announced his trans identity. He was 16. You say your daughter is very intelligent. Snap! Which makes it all the more confusing. How can these smart kids be taken in by this ideology. It's beyond me. How can they believe that taking hormones can change their sex? But they seem to. I hope your daughter sees the light. My son hasn't. I haven't seen or heard from him for over two years.
A salient essay given the recent article(s) in the NYT as it regards transgender affirmative healthcare. We are also a family dealing with this issue, albeit farther along than you. Our daughter began cross sex hormones in 2019 while a freshman in college. We were highly concerned as you can imagine and pleaded with her to wait, to no avail. We were “transphobes” in her eyes and she followed the trans activist dictum to “go no contact”. She estranged herself from us, we have not had communication from her in five years. We have periodically tried to reconnect but our efforts have been rejected. Our hearts are broken, our family has suffered terribly.
Biden Administration Opposes Surgery for Transgender Minors
The statement followed a report in The Times that a federal health official had urged the removal of age minimums from treatment guidelines for transgender minors.
A procedure called top surgery performed on a 14-year-old in California in 2015. Surgery for transgender minors remains exceedingly rare, studies have shown.
By Roni Caryn Rabin, Teddy Rosenbluth and Noah Weiland
June 28, 2024
The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights.
The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors.
The draft guidelines would have lowered the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies. The final guidelines, released in 2022, removed the age-based recommendations altogether.
“Adm. Levine shared her view with her staff that publishing the proposed lower ages for gender transition surgeries was not supported by science or research, and could lead to an onslaught of attacks on the transgender community,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening.
Federal officials did not elaborate further on the administration’s position regarding the scientific research or on Adm. Levine’s role in having the age minimums removed.
The administration, which has been supportive of gender-affirming care for transgender youth, expressed opposition only to surgeries for minors, not other treatments. The procedures are usually irreversible, critics have said.
Medical care for transgender adolescents has become a hot-button issue in many states, particularly in conservative political circles. The Texas Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state law banning all gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a challenge — brought in part by the Biden administration — to a Tennessee law that bans treatments including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender minors. This will be first time the justices will decide on the constitutionality of such statewide bans.
The Biden administration’s previous statements on gender-affirming care for minors have not in the past explicitly opposed surgery.
A two-page explainer on gender-affirming care that is frequently cited by federal officials stated that gender-affirming surgeries were “typically used in adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence,” leaving the door open to surgery for minors in some instances.
Other gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers are used during puberty, the explainer noted. Hormone treatments with estrogen or testosterone, which are partly irreversible, are used in “early adolescence and onwards,” it said.
Despite the outsize attention the issue has drawn, it is rare for minors in the United States to undergo gender-affirming surgeries.
The procedures include “top” surgeries to remove or augment the breasts, “bottom” surgeries on genitals and reproductive organs, and other operations to modify facial features.
Breast reductions or mastectomies for transgender men and nonbinary individuals are the procedures done most frequently. Some doctors have argued that minors should have access to breast surgery before age 18 because breast development takes place early in puberty and the breasts are so visible that transitioning teens go to great lengths to conceal them, often binding their chests.
But even as the number of minors having these operations has risen in recent years, they continue to be extremely uncommon.
The number of annual chest procedures for minors covered by insurance in the United States is estimated to be in the hundreds. While there are no official statistics, a national analysis of hospital data from 2016 through 2020 identified about 3,600 patients from the ages of 12 to 18 who had gender-affirming surgery.
A vast majority were chest-related, an increasingly common procedure among transgender teens.
An analysis of one hospital’s data found that the number of gender-affirming mastectomies in insured teenagers increased from five cases in 2013 to 70 in 2019. But genital surgeries among minors are “exceedingly rare,” doctors have reported.
The administration has been a strong supporter of transgender people, affirming individual rights to gender-affirming care, highlighting federal provisions protecting transgender Americans against discrimination, and emphasizing the importance of mental health services for transgender youth.
The Biden administration has condemned state legislation targeting transgender people. It has allowed passport holders to use an “X” to describe their gender, and taken steps to combat violence against transgender individuals.
After Florida proposed a number of laws targeting transgender residents in 2023, including measures that would ban gender-affirming care for minors and restrict transgender athletes from joining certain sports teams, Mr. Biden said he found the efforts “terrible.”
He did not specify the particular policies with which he disagreed. In contrast, Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, announced a plan in a video posted in 2023 on Truth Social to pass a federal law banning all gender-affirming care for minors, which he described as “child sexual mutilation.”
He also said any hospitals that perform the treatment would be ineligible for Medicaid and Medicare funds under this policy
Thank you for writing this! When you said the blueprint and described your situation, you could be my daughter’s parents, and we could be yours. I cannot believe we are living in this madness. I cannot comprehend how it got to this point. I agree that we have a long way to go, and I can only hope our daughters can wait, mature, and realize they are perfect the way they are. Let’s keep up the fight; we have no other choice!
I relate to your experience both at work and at home. I had to leave my job at a nonprofit because my tolerance for idealistic dishonesty ran out, along with my willingness to self-censor.
And then my smart, gorgeous daughter joined the “trans” cult, adopting an aggressively masculine identity after she realized she’s a lesbian. I suppose I should be thankful that I haven’t had to deal with my colleagues celebrating her for coming out as a boy. Enough of that at school 😞
I hope we hear more from you now that you are writing for Genspect.
No it's 100% not normal! Surgery ain't reversible.
I've spent time recently almost coming to blows, but nearly amicably as usual, because my beloved son and daughter in law, both early 30s, both UK doctors, whilst loving me refuse to see me on trans issues as anything other than a bigot, an old out of date Feminist who is algorithm-captured, someone who cannot empathise with the 'progressive' ideas of Gen Z and Millennials.
It's the refusal to understand the basic issues that makes me want to explode. Disagree with me. I welcome it. But at least read the research. Access work from state-of-the-art Feminists and writers. (I am so grateful to them...although the bookcase is heaving). Listen to articulate debate on UTube. It's all out there. Read Cass. Access the research. My son will be a paediatrician very soon......
My heart goes out to every parent who has had to face gender issues with their beloved children - and which are obviously infinitely more heartbreaking than my frustrations. I cannot even start to understand where your emotional strength comes from.
And love too to every person at work who has been punished for standing up for truth and normality - and for young people, and women. For sanity. For the right to speak out.
Yes highly intelligent young people have been captured by a dangerous ideology.
Social media enables this geeat forum. But we know it is a poisoned chalice . My kids had Nokia phones as teenagers and they've still been captured by irrationality in the 21st century.
Finally, I would like more figures and stats around what is going on in the UK when we have them. It's so easy for people to say: 'Yes but it's very niche'. Or 'Well it never happens in my school'. We live in a black and white world and good people prefer to brush discussion aside by minimising something that we here all feel so passionately about, and know is vitally important.
That was a great essay and I can empathise with you as I was in the same situation myself. After the covid lockdowns my son announced his trans identity. He was 16. You say your daughter is very intelligent. Snap! Which makes it all the more confusing. How can these smart kids be taken in by this ideology. It's beyond me. How can they believe that taking hormones can change their sex? But they seem to. I hope your daughter sees the light. My son hasn't. I haven't seen or heard from him for over two years.
A salient essay given the recent article(s) in the NYT as it regards transgender affirmative healthcare. We are also a family dealing with this issue, albeit farther along than you. Our daughter began cross sex hormones in 2019 while a freshman in college. We were highly concerned as you can imagine and pleaded with her to wait, to no avail. We were “transphobes” in her eyes and she followed the trans activist dictum to “go no contact”. She estranged herself from us, we have not had communication from her in five years. We have periodically tried to reconnect but our efforts have been rejected. Our hearts are broken, our family has suffered terribly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/health/transgender-surgery-biden.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Any chance anyone can copy and paste that article? Or that anyone has a link to the archived version?
Biden Administration Opposes Surgery for Transgender Minors
The statement followed a report in The Times that a federal health official had urged the removal of age minimums from treatment guidelines for transgender minors.
A procedure called top surgery performed on a 14-year-old in California in 2015. Surgery for transgender minors remains exceedingly rare, studies have shown.
By Roni Caryn Rabin, Teddy Rosenbluth and Noah Weiland
June 28, 2024
The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights.
The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors.
The draft guidelines would have lowered the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies. The final guidelines, released in 2022, removed the age-based recommendations altogether.
“Adm. Levine shared her view with her staff that publishing the proposed lower ages for gender transition surgeries was not supported by science or research, and could lead to an onslaught of attacks on the transgender community,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening.
Federal officials did not elaborate further on the administration’s position regarding the scientific research or on Adm. Levine’s role in having the age minimums removed.
The administration, which has been supportive of gender-affirming care for transgender youth, expressed opposition only to surgeries for minors, not other treatments. The procedures are usually irreversible, critics have said.
Medical care for transgender adolescents has become a hot-button issue in many states, particularly in conservative political circles. The Texas Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state law banning all gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a challenge — brought in part by the Biden administration — to a Tennessee law that bans treatments including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender minors. This will be first time the justices will decide on the constitutionality of such statewide bans.
The Biden administration’s previous statements on gender-affirming care for minors have not in the past explicitly opposed surgery.
A two-page explainer on gender-affirming care that is frequently cited by federal officials stated that gender-affirming surgeries were “typically used in adulthood or case-by-case in adolescence,” leaving the door open to surgery for minors in some instances.
Other gender-affirming treatments such as puberty blockers are used during puberty, the explainer noted. Hormone treatments with estrogen or testosterone, which are partly irreversible, are used in “early adolescence and onwards,” it said.
Despite the outsize attention the issue has drawn, it is rare for minors in the United States to undergo gender-affirming surgeries.
The procedures include “top” surgeries to remove or augment the breasts, “bottom” surgeries on genitals and reproductive organs, and other operations to modify facial features.
Breast reductions or mastectomies for transgender men and nonbinary individuals are the procedures done most frequently. Some doctors have argued that minors should have access to breast surgery before age 18 because breast development takes place early in puberty and the breasts are so visible that transitioning teens go to great lengths to conceal them, often binding their chests.
But even as the number of minors having these operations has risen in recent years, they continue to be extremely uncommon.
The number of annual chest procedures for minors covered by insurance in the United States is estimated to be in the hundreds. While there are no official statistics, a national analysis of hospital data from 2016 through 2020 identified about 3,600 patients from the ages of 12 to 18 who had gender-affirming surgery.
A vast majority were chest-related, an increasingly common procedure among transgender teens.
An analysis of one hospital’s data found that the number of gender-affirming mastectomies in insured teenagers increased from five cases in 2013 to 70 in 2019. But genital surgeries among minors are “exceedingly rare,” doctors have reported.
The administration has been a strong supporter of transgender people, affirming individual rights to gender-affirming care, highlighting federal provisions protecting transgender Americans against discrimination, and emphasizing the importance of mental health services for transgender youth.
The Biden administration has condemned state legislation targeting transgender people. It has allowed passport holders to use an “X” to describe their gender, and taken steps to combat violence against transgender individuals.
After Florida proposed a number of laws targeting transgender residents in 2023, including measures that would ban gender-affirming care for minors and restrict transgender athletes from joining certain sports teams, Mr. Biden said he found the efforts “terrible.”
He did not specify the particular policies with which he disagreed. In contrast, Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, announced a plan in a video posted in 2023 on Truth Social to pass a federal law banning all gender-affirming care for minors, which he described as “child sexual mutilation.”
He also said any hospitals that perform the treatment would be ineligible for Medicaid and Medicare funds under this policy
Thank you for sharing this. We do still have a long way to go. You should ask for a platform in Lisbon xxx
Thank you for writing this! When you said the blueprint and described your situation, you could be my daughter’s parents, and we could be yours. I cannot believe we are living in this madness. I cannot comprehend how it got to this point. I agree that we have a long way to go, and I can only hope our daughters can wait, mature, and realize they are perfect the way they are. Let’s keep up the fight; we have no other choice!
I relate to your experience both at work and at home. I had to leave my job at a nonprofit because my tolerance for idealistic dishonesty ran out, along with my willingness to self-censor.
And then my smart, gorgeous daughter joined the “trans” cult, adopting an aggressively masculine identity after she realized she’s a lesbian. I suppose I should be thankful that I haven’t had to deal with my colleagues celebrating her for coming out as a boy. Enough of that at school 😞
I hope we hear more from you now that you are writing for Genspect.
Thank you so much to the writer and to Genspect.
No it's 100% not normal! Surgery ain't reversible.
I've spent time recently almost coming to blows, but nearly amicably as usual, because my beloved son and daughter in law, both early 30s, both UK doctors, whilst loving me refuse to see me on trans issues as anything other than a bigot, an old out of date Feminist who is algorithm-captured, someone who cannot empathise with the 'progressive' ideas of Gen Z and Millennials.
It's the refusal to understand the basic issues that makes me want to explode. Disagree with me. I welcome it. But at least read the research. Access work from state-of-the-art Feminists and writers. (I am so grateful to them...although the bookcase is heaving). Listen to articulate debate on UTube. It's all out there. Read Cass. Access the research. My son will be a paediatrician very soon......
My heart goes out to every parent who has had to face gender issues with their beloved children - and which are obviously infinitely more heartbreaking than my frustrations. I cannot even start to understand where your emotional strength comes from.
And love too to every person at work who has been punished for standing up for truth and normality - and for young people, and women. For sanity. For the right to speak out.
Yes highly intelligent young people have been captured by a dangerous ideology.
Social media enables this geeat forum. But we know it is a poisoned chalice . My kids had Nokia phones as teenagers and they've still been captured by irrationality in the 21st century.
Finally, I would like more figures and stats around what is going on in the UK when we have them. It's so easy for people to say: 'Yes but it's very niche'. Or 'Well it never happens in my school'. We live in a black and white world and good people prefer to brush discussion aside by minimising something that we here all feel so passionately about, and know is vitally important.
Thank you again.