How do you know when a little boy really wants to be a little girl, or vice-versa, to the point that you physically alter their gender for life?
You don’t know. So it’s something you just don’t act on. What if a child seriously wants to be a bunny? A pony? Do you act on that medically?
That’s some of the reasoning behind a new Alabama law, signed into existence on April 15, that makes it a crime for doctors to treat people under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to “help affirm their gender identity.” The law is set to take effect May 8, and will make it a felony for a doctor to prescribe such chemicals to anyone under age 19. Violators could get up to 10 years in prison. Gender transition surgeries are also prohibited.
Some families with allegedly “transgender” teens sued the state in federal court on April 11 to overturn the law, as did the physicians who “treat” their children, and among their arguments is that young people might commit suicide if they don’t get the body-altering drugs before they become adults.
Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the legislation the day after it was passed by the Alabama Legislature. Asked recently about her decision, the governor said: “If the good Lord made you a boy at birth, then you are a boy. If the good Lord made you a girl at birth, then you are a girl. We should especially focus our efforts on helping these young people become healthy adults just like God wanted them to be rather than self-induced medical intervenors.”
But not allowing the permanent alteration of minors’ bodies with drugs is “legislative overreach,” according to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“The level of legislative overreach into the practice of medicine is unprecedented. And never before has legislative overreach come into pediatric examination rooms to shut down the parent voice in medical decision making between a parent, their pediatrician and their child,” said Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, to the Associated Press.
In one of the suits, parents described the fear that their son, called “Mary Roe” in the suit, would harm himself or try to commit suicide if he loses access to the puberty blockers he began taking last year to attempt to make himself into a girl.
“For Mary to be forced to go through male puberty would be devastating; it would predictably result in her experiencing isolation, depression, anxiety, and distress,” the lawsuit states.
Jen Psaki, who has the unfortunate job as White House press secretary of trying to communicate for Joe Biden, recently invoked the elitist-authority position on the matter, saying: “Every major medical association agrees that gender-affirming health care for transgender kids is a best practice and potentially life-saving.”
Only how many kids might commit suicide because they did “transition”?
