On Saturday, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah signed a complete ban on hormone replacement therapy and gender affirming surgery for transgender youth in the state.
As a practicing physician I can say very strongly and emphatically that politicians should stay out of the doctor's exam room. Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Spencer Cox and the others have no business interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. They want 'freedom' only when it involves guns, vaccines or wearing masks. Complete hypocrites! Just reprehensible!
Can you prove that artificially altering the hormones of developing children in puberty (the most critical period for development into adulthood driven largely by hormones) doesn't have any lasting impacts on their development or health? Taking steroids/ testosterone can have serious implications on health, so how is it possible that taking a bundle of hormones intended to change the entire biological development of a child is not a risk to health or that it isn't permanent.
Mr. Slater, your ‘proof’ statement is just a taunt my man.
I’m assuming neither one of us are experts in this area and I would clearly defer to the health care specialists over you or the politicians who have blocked all treatments for these people without a modicum of medical evidence.
The attack on this small segment of the population is just a blatant, reprehensible political ploy to cater to their base, nothing more.
We already have the proof that *not* administering this life-saving protocol has dire consequences. As I understand it, puberty blockers do not *add* artificial hormones, but delay an irreversible process to avoid further body and gender dysphoria. Saving kids’ lives and affirming their identities IS health care.
Quite the contrary, we know for a fact that giving artificial hormones to athletes is potentially harmful for a number of reasons. That’s why it’s banned. For that reason, I would like to at least see some proof that this is not the same case for artificial hormone supplementation in children. Saying that a subject is too complex for anyone but the experts to investigate is nothing more than a ploy to prevent someone from questioning things. I’m not hardline against hormone therapy or convinced that it is wrong, but I would like to see some proof the same risks that we know apply to the hormone therapy in adults do not apply to hormone replacement in children. Appreciate the discourse nonetheless🤙
And if you’re a parent with a child with a medical issue, it is certainly your right to question the doctors and ‘do your own research’, just like it is for every other parent. And all parents should have this ‘freedom’ too, and not have politicians interfering to score political points!
Political point scoring is certainly not what we want, but I don’t think you need to be directly impacting by something to think about it’s merits or drawbacks objectively. There are already tons of medical laws and requirements on the books to dictate what doctors can and can’t do based on evidence based medicine. All I’m asking for is the evidence that this treatment is safe for the intended patient group before it’s allowed as standard practice.
I hear stories at my gym about adult men and women who have health problems and encounter early death due to their taking steroids, etc. for muscle vanity.
False equivalence. Thats not even the same thing. Steroids for "muscle vanity" being self administrered vs theraputic doses of hormones administered by a physician is a grand canyon width apart.
Actually, its explained very well. wondering if you understood it.
Self administration using non-therapeutic doses is way different than medical therapies overseen by a doctor, often administered by the doctor in their office. that you are not seeing or acknowledging the difference is your problem, not mine or societies to cure.
Perhaps if your profession did a better job of overseeing its practitioners (not all of whom are paragons of virtue), then the politicians would not show interest. If you don't want politicians involved in your exam room, are you willing to have your judgment and treatment evaluated by a team of your professional peers?
If politicians were truly "showing interest" in this because they think doctor's need oversight? I can think of at least a dozen medical decisions that political involvement would be better suited -- think of things like working to prevent people from going bankrupt due to medical bills, better funding for birth control research, better health education in schools to name a few. Why are they picking on this one issue that affects a small minority of citizens?
I'm with you!!!! They are picking on this one issue because it plucks the violin strings of a loud, misinformed, right-wing base that writes checks to campaigns. You have identified some very important issues that adversely impact many Americans. How does one channel this hostility into constructive solutions?
Various peer review mechanisms are already in place to monitor physicians and we have the trial lawyers keeping an eye on us too, so I think we are well-covered. We can have a whole separate discussion on issues regarding the American health care system, which would take a very long time and is not directly germane to the current issue at hand.
Are you of the opinion that our 'virtuous' representatives and government officials, like Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, maybe even Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is heading up the Covid 'Conspiracy' committee in the House) would do a better job of monitoring physicians and health care practitioners?
Perhaps the review mechanisms are insufficient on these specific conditions. Those politicians have taken notice and are flexing their muscle on behalf of their constituents and backers. That's unfortunate. They went for it on Covid and look at the damage they inflicted. I'm remembering when some people called Covid a "hoax!"
Seems to me the gender treatment issue is no different than the AIDS crisis in the 80's when politicians and activists (doing what they do best) made AIDS a political issue rather than a medical issue. After the political hysteria died down, the physicians and medical researchers were able to make measurable progress with treatment and so on.
I don't see a political contest on this issue as a win for anyone. The medical profession should respond in a medical and caring manner and give visible protection for the patients, not leaving it to individual practitioners or politicians. Perhaps an institute could be formed to conduct medical research and develop a more solid, medically credible knowledge base. Don't give the crackpots and conspiracy people an opening.
Given the political/legislative trends of the past couple of decades, my guess is that laws will be passed someday that will enable people who feel their interests were not protected, i.e., patient victims, to set aside waivers signed with medical providers and litigate or pursue criminal action against those medical providers and others in the health care system who treated them. This will add another dynamic to the controversy.
One thing is incontrovertible: that party as an entity in no way, no form, no nuance protects children, but weaponized the notion of children to raise money and ire.
I am not a developmental psychologist, an evolutionary biologist, a pediatrician, but in general it is understood that we are not a static species, and we respond epigentically, genotypically, phenotypically, psychosocially to pressures/influences exerted upon us by our environment. We are fluid and dynamic.
We no longer have to strictly hunt and gather in order to ensure propagation of the species.
Our success as an organism allows our psychoneurogenesis to proceed, perhaps in a manner outpacing our functional biology.
Of course, this is just speculation, but we are exploratory, inquisitive and curious creatures; for our fellow humans to seek a pejorative construct for this natural and human inclinations speaks to the baser component of our lot.
We must consistently and unabashedly decline to tolerate that contrived crap.
Christians screaming "protect our kids" when decades of clergy have been sexually abusing children. Sexual abuse has been systemic and rampant in the catholic church for decades. I was raised in a religious catholic home - I will NEVER go into a catholic church again.
I am an advocate for children - how can they think like this when they have allowed the abuse of children for decades?
Protect our kids and STOP this madness, LGBTQ children have such a high rate of suicide. Let them live in peace
This is indoctrination of our children not protection of our children. These people want to teach our children things that are not true --about gays, about transgender people, about race, about abortion, and about who is telling the truth. They are in fact taking away the books that would show the other side and they want to fill our kids textbooks with dehumanizing lies. This should put everyone on high alert. We can not let those who want to stay asleep stay asleep. We need to address what is actually occurring, not deny it and pretend.
I trust a trans gender person a lot more than a radical Christian who is more likely to open up with an automatic rifle than a transgender person who just want's to get on with his/her life rather than slaughter innocent people in a supermarket or a school .
I agree 100%. Thank you for your eloquence and work to support trans and NB people. I’ve learned from trans people in my life that gender-affirming care is lifesaving.
I find it amusing and infuriating at how incoherent their arguments are: parents should have the “right” to be informed of their child’s use of pronouns that are different from their biological sex, but NOT have the right to obtain medical treatment for their child in consultation with medical professionals?!? It’s nonsense.
If these politicians actually believed hormone therapy and gender related surgery was harmful, they would prohibit it for all children and teens. As it is, pumping testosterone into teen boys or silicone (or whatever they use these days) into teen girls' breasts, in either case to make cis kids act out stereotypes more, is not banned. These hateful attacks on trans kids are nothing but evil wrapped into pink and blue bows.
Thank you Jay for your passion and information on this subject. Why is there no word more descriptive than despicable, that certainly applies here. Ruining children's lives to make a buck! Shame, shame, shame on them.
Yes. It is a damn lie. Because what the right (or whomever is really behind this) is really doing is first identifying any and all issues that are the most polarizing and the most deeply emotional. Next they take a stand on those issues that is strict, dehumanizing, antieducational , and against giving help to those who suffer. This enrages the left which is their real aim. This is how they will accomplish their goal of sowing doubt, hate, fear and mistrust among our countrymen, women and children. Divide and conquer. The right are also victimized in this process by being indoctrinated and pumped up to hate the other side. If we don’t see through this warfare of words we will be pied pipered into oblivion.
Take the hand of your brother, of your sister, of all our children, and love them into our common strength. We must all stand together. No force can penetrate that.
Just as those who seek to "protect" unborn fetuses - regardless of extenuating circumstances or consequences - conflate their cause with being "Pro-Life," those who seek to arrest the development of gay and trans-gender children pretend they are "protecting" all children from something about which these fear-ridden adults have no knowledge, understanding, or sympathy. It's such a sad irony that we learn of so many people becoming Pro-Choice or supporters of gay and trans-rights only after they themselves experienced the anguish of a relative or friend enduring a crisis - sometimes leading to wonderful successes in overcoming hardship and discrimination, but too often resulting in life-threatening events, violence, or even death. For some people empathy develops only when reality hits home; for others that never happens.
I’m counting on our middle schoolers and high schoolers to reject the harshness and dumb idiotness of bullying, the swagger, intolerance, and total ignorance. I think kids generally like the kids who are different because every one of them feels different inside at that age. Those fine human beings will raise the consciousness of our human tribe. They will rise up and reject the non acceptance of our organic variety.
In general, I agree with you, but I hope the current generation of kids learns the right lessons from our nasty sociopolitical environment. Let's not forget that, at least in past generations, many middle schoolers were also extremely intolerant and cruel - including bullying, etc. And it's mainly GenZ and the current and generation of kids that has bred mass shooters, which was inconceivable 30 years ago.
As a practicing physician I can say very strongly and emphatically that politicians should stay out of the doctor's exam room. Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Spencer Cox and the others have no business interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. They want 'freedom' only when it involves guns, vaccines or wearing masks. Complete hypocrites! Just reprehensible!
👍 Say it louder for the people in the back!
Can you prove that artificially altering the hormones of developing children in puberty (the most critical period for development into adulthood driven largely by hormones) doesn't have any lasting impacts on their development or health? Taking steroids/ testosterone can have serious implications on health, so how is it possible that taking a bundle of hormones intended to change the entire biological development of a child is not a risk to health or that it isn't permanent.
Mr. Slater, your ‘proof’ statement is just a taunt my man.
I’m assuming neither one of us are experts in this area and I would clearly defer to the health care specialists over you or the politicians who have blocked all treatments for these people without a modicum of medical evidence.
The attack on this small segment of the population is just a blatant, reprehensible political ploy to cater to their base, nothing more.
We already have the proof that *not* administering this life-saving protocol has dire consequences. As I understand it, puberty blockers do not *add* artificial hormones, but delay an irreversible process to avoid further body and gender dysphoria. Saving kids’ lives and affirming their identities IS health care.
Quite the contrary, we know for a fact that giving artificial hormones to athletes is potentially harmful for a number of reasons. That’s why it’s banned. For that reason, I would like to at least see some proof that this is not the same case for artificial hormone supplementation in children. Saying that a subject is too complex for anyone but the experts to investigate is nothing more than a ploy to prevent someone from questioning things. I’m not hardline against hormone therapy or convinced that it is wrong, but I would like to see some proof the same risks that we know apply to the hormone therapy in adults do not apply to hormone replacement in children. Appreciate the discourse nonetheless🤙
And if you’re a parent with a child with a medical issue, it is certainly your right to question the doctors and ‘do your own research’, just like it is for every other parent. And all parents should have this ‘freedom’ too, and not have politicians interfering to score political points!
Political point scoring is certainly not what we want, but I don’t think you need to be directly impacting by something to think about it’s merits or drawbacks objectively. There are already tons of medical laws and requirements on the books to dictate what doctors can and can’t do based on evidence based medicine. All I’m asking for is the evidence that this treatment is safe for the intended patient group before it’s allowed as standard practice.
I hear stories at my gym about adult men and women who have health problems and encounter early death due to their taking steroids, etc. for muscle vanity.
False equivalence. Thats not even the same thing. Steroids for "muscle vanity" being self administrered vs theraputic doses of hormones administered by a physician is a grand canyon width apart.
Explain that to a jury or panel of medical professionals someday with reference to minor children.
Actually, its explained very well. wondering if you understood it.
Self administration using non-therapeutic doses is way different than medical therapies overseen by a doctor, often administered by the doctor in their office. that you are not seeing or acknowledging the difference is your problem, not mine or societies to cure.
Perhaps if your profession did a better job of overseeing its practitioners (not all of whom are paragons of virtue), then the politicians would not show interest. If you don't want politicians involved in your exam room, are you willing to have your judgment and treatment evaluated by a team of your professional peers?
If politicians were truly "showing interest" in this because they think doctor's need oversight? I can think of at least a dozen medical decisions that political involvement would be better suited -- think of things like working to prevent people from going bankrupt due to medical bills, better funding for birth control research, better health education in schools to name a few. Why are they picking on this one issue that affects a small minority of citizens?
I'm with you!!!! They are picking on this one issue because it plucks the violin strings of a loud, misinformed, right-wing base that writes checks to campaigns. You have identified some very important issues that adversely impact many Americans. How does one channel this hostility into constructive solutions?
Various peer review mechanisms are already in place to monitor physicians and we have the trial lawyers keeping an eye on us too, so I think we are well-covered. We can have a whole separate discussion on issues regarding the American health care system, which would take a very long time and is not directly germane to the current issue at hand.
Are you of the opinion that our 'virtuous' representatives and government officials, like Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, Ron DeSantis, maybe even Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is heading up the Covid 'Conspiracy' committee in the House) would do a better job of monitoring physicians and health care practitioners?
Perhaps the review mechanisms are insufficient on these specific conditions. Those politicians have taken notice and are flexing their muscle on behalf of their constituents and backers. That's unfortunate. They went for it on Covid and look at the damage they inflicted. I'm remembering when some people called Covid a "hoax!"
Seems to me the gender treatment issue is no different than the AIDS crisis in the 80's when politicians and activists (doing what they do best) made AIDS a political issue rather than a medical issue. After the political hysteria died down, the physicians and medical researchers were able to make measurable progress with treatment and so on.
I don't see a political contest on this issue as a win for anyone. The medical profession should respond in a medical and caring manner and give visible protection for the patients, not leaving it to individual practitioners or politicians. Perhaps an institute could be formed to conduct medical research and develop a more solid, medically credible knowledge base. Don't give the crackpots and conspiracy people an opening.
Given the political/legislative trends of the past couple of decades, my guess is that laws will be passed someday that will enable people who feel their interests were not protected, i.e., patient victims, to set aside waivers signed with medical providers and litigate or pursue criminal action against those medical providers and others in the health care system who treated them. This will add another dynamic to the controversy.
One thing is incontrovertible: that party as an entity in no way, no form, no nuance protects children, but weaponized the notion of children to raise money and ire.
I am not a developmental psychologist, an evolutionary biologist, a pediatrician, but in general it is understood that we are not a static species, and we respond epigentically, genotypically, phenotypically, psychosocially to pressures/influences exerted upon us by our environment. We are fluid and dynamic.
We no longer have to strictly hunt and gather in order to ensure propagation of the species.
Our success as an organism allows our psychoneurogenesis to proceed, perhaps in a manner outpacing our functional biology.
Of course, this is just speculation, but we are exploratory, inquisitive and curious creatures; for our fellow humans to seek a pejorative construct for this natural and human inclinations speaks to the baser component of our lot.
We must consistently and unabashedly decline to tolerate that contrived crap.
Christians screaming "protect our kids" when decades of clergy have been sexually abusing children. Sexual abuse has been systemic and rampant in the catholic church for decades. I was raised in a religious catholic home - I will NEVER go into a catholic church again.
I am an advocate for children - how can they think like this when they have allowed the abuse of children for decades?
Protect our kids and STOP this madness, LGBTQ children have such a high rate of suicide. Let them live in peace
Thank you for this post Jay
This is indoctrination of our children not protection of our children. These people want to teach our children things that are not true --about gays, about transgender people, about race, about abortion, and about who is telling the truth. They are in fact taking away the books that would show the other side and they want to fill our kids textbooks with dehumanizing lies. This should put everyone on high alert. We can not let those who want to stay asleep stay asleep. We need to address what is actually occurring, not deny it and pretend.
I trust a trans gender person a lot more than a radical Christian who is more likely to open up with an automatic rifle than a transgender person who just want's to get on with his/her life rather than slaughter innocent people in a supermarket or a school .
His "love and respect" is the "thoughts and prayers" you get from the gun humpers.
I agree 100%. Thank you for your eloquence and work to support trans and NB people. I’ve learned from trans people in my life that gender-affirming care is lifesaving.
I find it amusing and infuriating at how incoherent their arguments are: parents should have the “right” to be informed of their child’s use of pronouns that are different from their biological sex, but NOT have the right to obtain medical treatment for their child in consultation with medical professionals?!? It’s nonsense.
Prayers for all those affected. I have had trans friends and trans students for many many years. Let them be who they are. People are people. Period.
If these politicians actually believed hormone therapy and gender related surgery was harmful, they would prohibit it for all children and teens. As it is, pumping testosterone into teen boys or silicone (or whatever they use these days) into teen girls' breasts, in either case to make cis kids act out stereotypes more, is not banned. These hateful attacks on trans kids are nothing but evil wrapped into pink and blue bows.
Thank you Jay for your passion and information on this subject. Why is there no word more descriptive than despicable, that certainly applies here. Ruining children's lives to make a buck! Shame, shame, shame on them.
I'd love to see some tv ads on this as part of suicide prevention ...
Yes. It is a damn lie. Because what the right (or whomever is really behind this) is really doing is first identifying any and all issues that are the most polarizing and the most deeply emotional. Next they take a stand on those issues that is strict, dehumanizing, antieducational , and against giving help to those who suffer. This enrages the left which is their real aim. This is how they will accomplish their goal of sowing doubt, hate, fear and mistrust among our countrymen, women and children. Divide and conquer. The right are also victimized in this process by being indoctrinated and pumped up to hate the other side. If we don’t see through this warfare of words we will be pied pipered into oblivion.
Take the hand of your brother, of your sister, of all our children, and love them into our common strength. We must all stand together. No force can penetrate that.
Thank you for writing this, Jay.
Just as those who seek to "protect" unborn fetuses - regardless of extenuating circumstances or consequences - conflate their cause with being "Pro-Life," those who seek to arrest the development of gay and trans-gender children pretend they are "protecting" all children from something about which these fear-ridden adults have no knowledge, understanding, or sympathy. It's such a sad irony that we learn of so many people becoming Pro-Choice or supporters of gay and trans-rights only after they themselves experienced the anguish of a relative or friend enduring a crisis - sometimes leading to wonderful successes in overcoming hardship and discrimination, but too often resulting in life-threatening events, violence, or even death. For some people empathy develops only when reality hits home; for others that never happens.
I’m counting on our middle schoolers and high schoolers to reject the harshness and dumb idiotness of bullying, the swagger, intolerance, and total ignorance. I think kids generally like the kids who are different because every one of them feels different inside at that age. Those fine human beings will raise the consciousness of our human tribe. They will rise up and reject the non acceptance of our organic variety.
In general, I agree with you, but I hope the current generation of kids learns the right lessons from our nasty sociopolitical environment. Let's not forget that, at least in past generations, many middle schoolers were also extremely intolerant and cruel - including bullying, etc. And it's mainly GenZ and the current and generation of kids that has bred mass shooters, which was inconceivable 30 years ago.
I am so glad I subscribed to your blog! Just wanted you to know.
Thank you, Jay. This is the most important piece you have written...in my opinion.