OPINION: Wisconsin lawmakers have made numerous attempts to deny Edward, my trans child, access to life-saving health care. Edward spent 14 days and one school year in the hospital for mental health problems before starting cortisol. After years of struggle with suicidal ideation, Edward began taking hormones as a result of an intentional overdose that nearly killed him.
Edward hasn’t been admitted to a mental health hospital since starting testosterone three years ago. We must retaliate against politicians who are attempting to determine our children’s health needs.
Radical Wisconsin lawmakers are attempting to pass gender-affirming care for minors once more after numerous other bills have failed to do so. The bill was vetoed by Tony Evers after a reading that was jam-packed with false information. The Committee of Rules will presently hear it.
The American Medical Association sent a powerful message to lawmakers in 2021 urging them to resist legislation that would have prohibited gender-affirming treatment. Access to gender-affirming medical care decreased rates of depression and suicide, according to the Trevor Project in 2021. According to a different study from 2022, young people taking gender-affirming medications had 73% lower suicidal and 60% lower odds of depression than those who did not.
According to more studies, gender-affirming therapy improves mental health. But politicians continue to push bills restricting sex-affirming care, opposing recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association.
With other important issues, like the cost of healthcare, should our politicians be spending their time and our tax money rewriting rejected bills opposing medical care for transgender minors when trans people make up about 0.34% of Wisconsin’s people? The bill mirrors policy from the right-wing FPA (Family Policy Alliance), which strives to adhere all levels of government to a “biblical worldview.”
Since Rep. Scott Allen, one of the bill’s authors, took the FPA transgender policy education, it appears bill authors in Wisconsin may be pushing these beliefs.
Show your legislators to stop wasting time trying to deny Wisconsin citizens access to medical care and to instead concentrate on issues that are most important to them.
In order to maintain their privacy, the transgender child in this opinion piece was given a pseudonym.
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