HOST: Elizabeth LOUISE KELLY
Gender-affirming treatment for adolescents is now prohibited in at least 22 states. This quarter, West Virginia and Louisiana followed suit. As a result, some families with trans children are packing up their residences and relocating to states with kinder laws, such as Colorado. Reporting with Colorado Public Radio is Matt Bloom.
Matt BLOOM: Hadley Charles resembles a lot of 13-year-olds. She enjoys spending time with friends and dabbling in her interests, which include creating vibrant connection jewelry. On her Denver home table, she is displaying them.
HADLEY CHARLES: According to Taylor’s type, this one.
Rose: Ever since she relocated from Oklahoma City in August, she has felt inspired. Hadley, who is also transgender, claims that recent laws in her home state gave her the desire to spend the entire evening in a room. They stopped her from using the restroom at the girls’ school, from participating in gender-transitional sports teams, and from receiving specific medications from doctors.
HADLEY: At the time, I was feeling a lot of anxiety and was, like, extremely frightened. It was simply very difficult to attend school.
Rose: According to major health organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, gender distress is a severe medical condition, and for many trans children, medications like hormone therapy and puberty blockers are both safe and important. However, over the past two years, Oklahoma’s Republican-led government is one of nearly two dozen that have passed limitations on gender-affirming care for minors. Supporters contend that children are protected by the law. Liz, Hadley’s mother, disagrees with that. She has aided her child in her transition and claims that Oklahoma’s laws have depressed her.
LIZ CHARLES: At that point, our world began to feel genuinely apocalyptic. Oh, this isn’t going to get any better, it seemed.
Rose: In August of last year, she made the hard choice to leave her job and relocate. She and Hadley chose Colorado because it is one of only 14 states that provide adolescents with gender-affirming treatment. Other people with transgender children, according to advocates, are following suit.
BRIANNA TITONE: We’re making migrants in our own country.
Rose: Democratic state representative Brianna Titone contributed to the passage of Colorado’s protections for transgender people. She claims that although the state doesn’t keep track of specific numbers of trans people moving in, wait times have doubled in some cases as a result of doctors’ inability to keep up.
TITONE: The backlog will always exist if we can’t train them quickly enough. And if more citizens arrive, things will only get worse.
Rose: Additionally, providers in different states are experiencing longer wait times. Head of the U.S. Professional Association for Transgender Health and a primary care physician with offices in Boston, Dr. Carl Streed Jr.
CARL STREED: My wait period has increased from, say, four to six weeks after a new client session to up to eight to twelve weeks or even longer after that.
Rose: According to Streed, it’s difficult to track precisely how many people or providers are moving because things happen very quickly.
STREED: In order to fully comprehend what has occurred in the last one or two years with regard to these bans, we won’t have access to those numbers for at least another two or three years.
Rose: Families like Liz and Hadley Charles claim that moving was difficult logistically, but it was worthwhile. Hadley then smiled more broadly and has a doctor who agrees with her.
HADLEY: I was in a terrible emotional state when I moved to OKC, and although it took some time, I immediately felt emotionally much better.
Rose: Hadley’s next objective is to meet some new people and carry on the transition she was unable to make up in her hometown. I’m Matt Bloom for NPR News. Rights NPR provided the text.
