Despite the fact that medications are well studied and have been used safely since the late 1980s, Rep. Brad Roae (R-Crawford/Erie) wants to legislate against gender change surgery and puberty blockers for minors.
The northwestern PA legislator is circulating a co-sponsorship memoranda that would address a one-size-fits-all approach to permanent irreversible gender change decisions by simply considering an adolescent’s mental capacity, maturity, and ongoing brain development at the time that a minor child wants a permanent irreversible gender change.
Roae suggests that the human brain continues to develop into a person’s 20s and that adolescents “are less capable of making thoughtful decisions, are more likely to make impulsive decisions and be influenced by peer pressure than when they are older.”
A member of the state House since 2007, Roae is calling for the state to “consider the lack of youth social-emotional and cognitive control” as they consider “irreversible” gender changing surgery and puberty blocker medication systems for minors under the age of 18.
An article in May’s edition of Scientific American says that the medications Roae questions “are well studied and have been used safely since the late 1980s to pause puberty in adolescents with gender dysphoria. They have been used routinely for even longer in children who enter puberty too early and in adults with a range of other medical conditions. Puberty-blocking medications are part of a class of hormonal therapies that include birth control pills, treatments for menopause symptoms, treatments for certain kinds of cancer, and more.”
Florida, Idaho, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah, Iowa and Tennessee have banned gender-affirming care for anyone under 18 years old. The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking the status of 122 health care–related anti-LGBTQ+ bills, which disproportionally target transgender youth.
Puberty has a long natural window, which typically occurs between eight and 14 years of age and lasts from two to five years. Blockers are usually prescribed once puberty has already begun, and the process involves evaluations by multiple doctors, including mental health practitioners, explained Stephen Rosenthal, a member of the board of directors at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, Benioff Children’s Hospitals.
Medication that pauses puberty, specifically, has the power to prevent a mental health crisis, making the treatment a “profoundly meaningful intervention” for a young person and their family, says Meredithe McNamara, an adolescent medicine physician at the Yale School of Medicine. “Puberty-blocking treatment is probably one of the most compassionate things that a parent can consent to for a transgender child.” It allows transgender children and their families the opportunity to weigh their options carefully, without the constant pressure of physical changes, she says.
Roae wrote that under his proposed legislation, “permanent and irreversible gender change surgery and puberty blockers would be banned for minors under 18 years of age. As elected officials, we must ensure our youth, including juveniles and adolescents, are treated fairly.”
13 Responses
There’s no such thing as a “transgender person.” Biologically not possible. Ban it. End child abuse. Never bend a knee to the woke mob.
Trans/gnc people have existed as long as we’ve had societies. Decades of scientific research has unambiguously shown that the best response to gender dysphoria is transition.
Gender affirming care is lifesaving.
The only child abusers are the people who want to stop kids from seeing a doctor who could save their life.
First and foremost, this is an issue that all people should be interested in learning about, especially for the sake or children. Divisiveness is an unintelligent cop-out and accomplishes nothing.
I love all people, especially children. Children go through many stages in their development through the years, including personality development. The last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, responsible for critical thinking skills, which occurs between the ages of 25-30. All of this information is available on the NIH website.
I love children enough to want to protect them from the transgender agenda until they’re at least 18. I want them to know the truth. No child is able to make this decision. Watch the story if Chloe Cole and others, and learn the truth about what they’ve gone through in transitioning and detransitioning. It’s heartbreaking and shocking. They are forever changed, especially by pharmaceuticals and radical surgeries, which have never been studied for longterm effects.
The medical community, pharmaceutical companies, and some in the LGBTQ+ community do not have the best interests of children at heart. The first two see dollar signs and a continued money stream; the last includes people who want to promote their lifestyle. Those are not sound reasons for promoting transgenderism.
ZFrom a personal viewpoint, I believe that each child is created in the womb by God, and He doesn’t makes mistakes. He gives us what we need to navigate life, especially the Holy Spirit, which comes with Salvation. God’s way is the path we should yearn for. I pray that those who don’t know Him will learn about Him through a sincere effort. For those that don’t believe, my faith doesn’t negate the facts throughout this comment.
God isn’t real.
Only 1% of people who transition regret it. Hip surgeries have higher rates of regret, and you’d be just as much a fool to ban them.
Decades and decades of research overwhelmingly affirm that transition improves mental health and saves lives. Every single peer-review medical org agrees, gender-affirming care is medicine.
Transition saves lives. Period.
Why in God’s name would you want to ban lifesaving medicine?
Republicans putting trans kids through this hell because of their own prejudices is evil and genocidal.
It would be a great start! The only people interested in children’s genitals are the freaking leftist who love porn in schools and men dressed as women reading to them.
I’m interested!!!
You’re a fucking moron.
Frank, the only people constantly talking about children’s genitals are Republicans. As a transgender person myself, I would have loved to have puberty blockers as a young teen. I’m lucky to have started taking HRT (in the form of Estradiol) at the age of 19. Going through a male puberty I was depressed and living my life in a haze. I didn’t even feel alive, truthfully. Now as a woman, I feel much happier and in control of my life. I feel as though I am truly alive thanks to just the process of HRT. I’ve not even undergone any surgeries.
For a child going through the same experiences I have, starting a male puberty and feeling completely alien in their own body while watching themselves undergo changes which drastically decrease their mental well being, puberty blockers are a life saving treatment.
And all puberty blockers do is delay the process of puberty. The moment they stop the blockers, they will undergo their normal puberty cycle. This gives children experiencing distress as they enter puberty the option to stop the cycle and evaluate what they want without any permanent changes. When they turn 18, ie become a legal adult, they can then chose to make more permanent decisions like starting HRT or undergoing surgery.
These proposals by republican politicians are simply attacking us as scapegoats, demonizing us as threats to children and society. Meanwhile, last year Republican politicians in Tennessee attempted to strip limitations on child marriage, alongside Republicans from West Virginia trying to block a ban on child marriage in the state. In WV again, Republicans also blocked a ban on teens receiving breast enlargement surgery. In a similar vein, Utah Republicans notably excluded cisgender teens receiving breast implants from their ban on gender affirming care, a ban clearly designed to target transgender individuals.
To change aim for a moment, Republican legislators in numerous states have lately been considering and attempting to turn back restrictions on child labor, allowing children (who they say are not old enough to have bodily autonomy) to work more hours in more dangerous jobs at younger ages. Children are already dying due to this, such as Duvan Tomas Perez from Mississippi, Michael Schuls from Wisconsin, and Will Hampton from Missouri.
If anyone is trying to protect children, it absolutely in not the GOP. They are quite factually harming children and putting them in harms way. Their attacks on transgender people is nothing more than a method of establishing dominance and control while turning the eye of working class Americans away from the real problems in society such as rampant consumerism, exploitation by the wealthy owning class, and the end of democracy in favor of a corporate oligarchy.
Children are absolutely under threat but not by transgender people. It is by business owners who see children as nothing more than a rights-less asset they can use for cheap labor unlike adults who for now have rights and the ability to fight back.
Republicans are obsessed with children’s genitals.
So am I
Yep just ask Gym Jordan or Matt Gaetz’s Venmo account.