Katie Bernard
The Kansas City Star’s Katie Bernard
Three years ago, the brother of Cat Poland was on the verge of passing away.
The Kansas mother of three disclosed to lawmakers on Thursday that her then 14-year-old child had attempted suicide after coming out as trans.
She also explained to them that cortisol, a gender-affirming treatment, made him “happier and healthier” than she’s seen him in decades. Poland told The Star that starting estrogen therapy was not a choice her household made lightly, but rather one that came about as a result of extensive therapy and in-depth discussions with doctors.
However, lawmakers in Kansas are considering legislation that would ban Poland’s child from using the medication that Poland claims saved his life and label that treatment as abuse.
Poland said, “I am certainly a great family, but I am certainly not an abusive one.” When I asked my brother about this bill, he responded that it would have been abusive not to assist me.
For the next time in a row, Kansas Republicans are pushing to outlaw gender transition surgeries and testosterone therapy for minors, which doctors refer to as gender-affirming treatment. They contend that children shouldn’t be able to make life-changing decisions about their healthcare, even with the support of parents and doctors.
Kansas may join a growing number of Republican states that forbid this treatment despite claims from major American health associations that its use is justified.
Congressional assaults on gender-affirming care are continuing.
The Human Rights Campaign claims that 22 states, including Missouri, forbid gender-affirming treatment for minors. According to the organization, 35% of transgender youth across the country live in these states.
The push comes after Kansas legislators passed a number of bills last year that governed the lives of transgender Kansans and young people but were unable to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill that prohibits gender-affirming treatment in adolescents.
The most recent proposal is undoubtedly met with fierce opposition from Kansas Democrats and, if passed, Kelly’s likely veto.
Poland, however, said her brother is burdened by the ongoing legislative assaults on transgender Kansans.
She said, “It’s like it’s this big stifling blanket.” “It darkens all the brightness, all the progress, and all the joy that he’s made knowing that these adults, who have never met him, probably don’t know any kids like him, are making these decisions about who he is as a person and the kind of life he can lead,” he said.
LGBTQ advocates warned lawmakers at hearings on Thursday that the proposed legislation would be incredibly damaging to transgender children in Kansas and send a clear message that they were never desired there.
Anthony Alvarez, a 19-year-old transgender man from Wyandotte County, said, “When I think about how happy I am with my female change, it pains me to think about that being taken away from another young Kansan.”
Two methods for restricting treatment
Two distinct bills that may impose restrictions on transgender youth’s access to healthcare are currently being considered by legislators.
One bill permits hormone therapy for juveniles and adults as long as practitioners adhere to a particular set of treatment guidelines developed by the Endocrine Society.
Hormone therapy and surgery are both restricted by a separate, wider bill. It impedes physicians’ certificates and allows a person to file a lawsuit against a medical provider who provides that treatment for up to 30 years after the fact. Additionally, it forbids any state employee who works with kids from encouraging physical or cultural transition, which opponents claim may include a teacher from a public institution who uses a student’s preferred pronouns in school.
Rep. Landwehr, a Republican from Wichita and the head of the House Health and Human Services Committee, said she anticipates her committee to either adopt one of the two policies or incorporate elements from both when acting on the subject.
Advocates for restrictions on the care, however, only spoke in favor of the overall plan. The Christian conservative policy group Kansas Family Voice’s lobbyist, Brittany Jones, claimed the policy should outlaw both hormone therapy and surgery.
Rep. Ron Bryce, a Republican from Coffeyville who introduced the larger bill, compared hormone treatment and transition therapies to lobotomies, a form of mental operation repeatedly used in the middle of the 20th centuries to treat schizophrenia.
According to Bryce, “like transgender treatments, it manipulates or destroys healthy tissue to treat mental problems,” arguing that the treatments weren’t safe and hadn’t been thoroughly studied.
The proposals, according to D. C. Hiegert, an advocate for the ACLU of Kansas, were among the biggest and most dangerous anti-trans bills that had ever been introduced in Kansas. He claimed that the bill, which is limited to surgery, sets a dangerous precedent by passing a certain medical directive into law. He claimed that because the measure’s broad definition prevents teachers and foster care social workers from using a trans youth’s preferred name and pronouns when referring to them.
“These bills are life-threatening,” he said, “and they
harm transgender people in our state and Kansas families in general.”
Worries about harm
The ideas’ supporters view it as a matter of child safety. California woman Chloe Cole, who detransitioned and has since traveled extensively to support bans on gender-affirming care, claimed that doctors had misled her by pointing her in the direction of gender transition rather than emotional health.
The risk was too great for a minor to make the wrong choice and suffer in the long run, according to Ivan Abdouch, a fellow at Do No Harm, a group that advocates for bans on gender-affirming care globally.
“Someone has to step in when doctors and parents are willing to risk this kind of potential harm to their children,” according to Abdouch, a former provider of gender-affirming care for adults.
However, the Academy of Pediatrics claims that children should receive “developmentally appropriate” gender-affirming care. Patients don’t take hormone therapy and surgery lightly, according to Amanda Mogoi, a Wichita nurse who is certified to provide that care.
Transgender Kansans who testified against the bills described extensive consultations with specialists before making the decision to proceed.
“Without the support and legally informed consent of all of their child guardians, no young people are progressing in gender-affirming treatment,” according to Mogoi.
