Why Republicans are suddenly in a rush to regulate every trans kid’s puberty
Should any of the bills become law, they would effectively cut off many adolescents from medically necessary and, often, lifesaving treatment for gender dysphoria. There are approximately 150,000 transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, and studies show that kids in Gen Z identify as more queer and trans than previous generations. A 2018 study found that the risk of developing a mental health condition was three to 13 times higher for transgender and gender-diverse youth than for their cisgender peers.
“The crisis that trans youth are facing right now is not a hypothetical,” said Gillian Branstetter, a spokesperson for the National Women’s Law Center. “It is real and it is well-documented and it is extremely severe. Efforts to limit the very solutions to that crisis are ignorant in the extreme and are a dangerous manifestation of rank partisanship and political opportunism.”
