“State May Add Coverage for Transgender Therapy” reads a headline in NY TIMES, and I got warm and fuzzy feelings when I saw it. It is only right that transgender people, who often live in dire poverty, should get coverage for the treatment they seek.
When I started to read the article, however, I discovered that it has nothing to do with therapy or transgender people. Medicaid coverage will be introduced to give puberty- arresting hormones and hysterectomies to prepubescent children. Because, apparently, it’s easier to sex-modify them now than after they become adults and can make these decisions for themselves. I’m guessing the next step will be to cut up and remodel babies whose biological sex their parents don’t happen to like.
It’s really cute that an 11-year-old kid who is not allowed to imbibe alcohol, no matter how much she might want to, should be permitted to take substances that will impact her body at least as badly. And all for what? Simply to allow their parents to avoid the onerous task of having actually to parent? How is this different from a parent who gives a baby a piece of clothing soaked in scotch to shut him up and make him sleep?
Clarissa's Blog 
I have been part of Vancouver’s transgender advocacy community for more than a decade. Individuals start their hormone treatments before adolescence so that they don’t have to go through adolescence twice and also don’t develop those secondary sexual attributes that will make it harder for them to ‘pass’ as adults. (All my transgender friends started treatments as adults and had to deal with these difficulties.) Moreover, virtually all individuals who opt for gender transition knew they wanted it as young children, many years before the adolescent years.) That said, no question this seems like a drastic step; my friends would respond that they felt an overwhelming and drastic need.
I don’t think your point about the possibility of parents “remodelling” their children is related to this issue, except insofar as parents and doctors already have to make difficult decisions when their children are born intersexed – hermaphodites, etc.
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Robert, I respect you deeply, but this is an issue where we will never agree.
As for the intersex, the adult intersex people almost uniformly say that they want all of the decisions to be left for them to make when they grow up. Parents and doctors should stay back and not “repair” what is not broken.
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The adult trans people I’ve talked to and read the writing of almost uniformly say that their lives would have been much more easier had they been able to choose not to go through puberty naturally.
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Do you really think it’s OK to perform a hysterectomy on a 9-year-old girl because “that’s what she wants”?
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No (and this is not standard of care anywhere), but I think a 12-year-old who thinks he or she may be trans should be allowed to postpone the gender-specific changes of puberty until age 16, and then, should it turn out necessary, start the hormonal treatment that will give them the body changes they want.
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No, it’s not standard care. But the goal of the law I’m discussing is to make it possible. Because once you accept the general principle that it’s ok to modify the bodies of small children if it’s too boring to parent them, there is no logical reason to stop at just one procedure. Or at just one age.
I saw on TV crazed mommies who are convinced their 2-year-olds are trans. Why not let them cut up the kids to make them more pleasing to mommy?
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“adult trans people I’ve talked to and read the writing of ”
That’s the wrong group to sample. Can’t find the original source but supposedly for 80 to 90 % of young children who express (even strong) gender dysphoria it’s a temporary condition that they no longer identify with by late adolescence or early adulthood.
Even if were possible to identify the 10-20 % who will carry g-d into adulthood (and I really doubt if it is) I have trouble with irreversible elective procedures on children.
Like Clarissa I’m all for helping impoverished adult transgender people with therapy that might make them happier but medical interventions that disrupt normal biological processes don’t have a great history of ending well….
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Exactly. A child who is unhappy with being a boy or a girl needs a parent and not a medical treatment. These feelings are extremely common and normal. The response can’t be to medicate the kids to shut them up.
This is consumerism at its utmost. A kid needs care and attention but it’s too boring to provide that. Let’s fix the kid instead. Horrible.
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With all due respect, Clarissa, I don’t think this is an area where you have done sufficient research. As the parent of a genderqueer child, and as someone with trans friends, I can tell you no one is giving children hormones out of laziness, or whatever you’re visualizing.
The road to hormone therapy is long and arduous. Kids (of whatever age) (and no matter what Rod Dreher thinks) don’t just decide one weekend that they’re trans.
They certainly don’t receive hormone therapy — or any other body-altering therapy — without a great deal of medical and psychiatric work being done first.
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This is a country where toddlers are being put on psychotropic meds and pre-teens are pumped full of Ritalin.
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Wait, hysterectomies? Unlike you I’m all for hormone blockers for adolescents who want them, since those are reversible, but I think every trans person I know would agree teens shouldn’t be getting hysterectomies.
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The article in question lists all kinds of surgical procedures that would be covered under this proposal.
As to the reversibility, do you really believe that such powerful intrusion into a growing body can have zero consequences?
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Right now there’s no evidence I know of that they have a major long term impact, but I don’t think it’s been studied enough to say for certain it has zero long term impact. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there’s something more to be uncovered. And of course all medications have some potential for harmful side effects, including these ones. I don’t advocate rushing into medicating any child.
But for trans people, puberty is guaranteed to have the irreversible consequence of giving them the wrong secondary sexual characteristics for them. Some changes can be reversed later fairly easily, but others either can’t be undone or require surgical intervention (voice change, breast growth, masculinization of the face, widening of the pelvis or shoulders, etc.)
Obviously we shouldn’t give hormone blockers to every little boy who likes to wear dresses, that would be stupid. But for children who have persistently expressed discomfort with their physical sex characteristics, hormone blockers can help them from physically developing in a way they don’t want to.
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I support state-sponsored psychological help of any cost to parents whose children express persistent discomfort. Before messing with the bodies of children, isn’t it easier to help their parents address their issues?
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