Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we discuss something that hasn’t left the news anytime in recent memory, and it’s one of those “hot button issues” that honestly and truly shouldn’t be an issue at all. Here’s TRANS KIDS 1: FACTS AND DANGERS.
The first thing you need to know is that, yes, trans kids exist. And yes, kids can know who they are even from a very young age. If they are in an open, accepting, and loving environment, they may even trust you enough to tell you about it.
And trans kids are as stable in their identity as their cis peers are. Cis kids know who they are (not trans), and trans kids know who they are too.
Here’s a quote from the study:
The research, spanning from 2013 to 2024 and involving over 900 young people across North America, found that more than 80% of participants—both cis and trans—remained comfortable with their expressed gender identity throughout the study.
I didn’t have that kind of childhood. Though the word “trans” was never spoken, my mother and stepfather were deeply homophobic, and anytime I displayed even the tiniest hint of anything girly, I was ridiculed, made fun of, yelled at, and punished for it.
And yeah, friends, that’s transphobia, even if my mother also didn’t consciously know who or what trans people were. For the record, I suspect my mother was so deeply transphobic because she herself was some flavor of trans or nonbinary, and was raised to hate and fear those things in herself. I talked about that in TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day).
I didn’t know I was trans as a kid, even though the signs were all there, and I can see them so easily when I look back now. Even though so many of my memories are lost to me, thanks to dissociating through my GENDER DYSPHORIA, I remember so many little things that were indications of my truth shining through.
For more on that, check out THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE (that we’re trans), and SEARCHING FOR MEANING (when you’re trans and don’t know it).
And if you don’t think this is something all of society does to all of us all the time, let GENDERED CHILDHOODS and TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING enlighten you as to all the ways our society forces compulsory cisgender heterosexuality on everyone.
Being a trans kid who didn’t know she was trans, who was punished for being different for her entire childhood, severely messed me up. All of my childhood (and pre-transition adulthood!) is tainted by the horror of my dysphoria. I lost memories from most of my childhood because of it. I had my childhood stolen from me because of it. That’s something I’ve said a lot in these essays, and it’s true.
What society does to trans kids when it punishes them and forces them to suffer does a lifetime’s worth of damage to a human being that’s very likely already suffering a whole lot (you don’t need to have dysphoria to be trans, but many or even most of us do).
It’s affected me so deeply that there’s already FIVE essays about the ways it’s impacted my life and given me a lifetime of trauma.
See THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US, THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST (when a tv show gave me back part of my childhood), THE PAST 3: TRANS GRIEF 1 and THE PAST 4: TRANS GRIEF 2 (when fake childhood school photos also gave me back a part of my childhood), and THE PAST 5: RECOVERING TRANS CHILDHOODS (which covers why many trans people may gravitate toward toys and things for kids more than you might think).
So if it’s possible to prevent a person from having to deal with a lifetime of pain and trauma, isn’t that something you’d want to be sure you do for your kids?! Seems pretty simple! But so many people fall for the propaganda (just like they do for TRANS SPORTS).
Like the whole trans people in sports fiasco, this has been coming for a while, and has been one of the prongs of attack on trans rights from bigoted republicans. Here’s a horrible ruling from the UK back in 2020, and look how much ink the notably transphobic BBC gives to “getting it wrong” and “detransitioning” with barely a mention to the thoughts of actual trans people.
It should be noted, as per THE 2022 US TRANS SURVEY RESULTS, part 4 that detransitioners make up a very small fraction of people who are nonetheless wielded like a weapon to deny care to all trans people, and the vast vast majority only detransition because of how awful cis people make our lives. But heaven forbid a cis person make a mistake, they must be protected, and if that means all actual trans people have to suffer, that’s fine. APPARENTLY.
Things have sadly only gotten much, MUCH worse, as attacks on trans people, specifically trans kids, have ramped up to an all-time high. Have a look at how bad things are for trans people in the US RIGHT NOW… NINE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-ONE ANTI-TRANS BILLS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED THIS YEAR SO FAR.
In fact, look at this map and really sit with what it’s showing you.
There’s more data and maps than just those for kids, I encourage you to look through them all. Browse through there. DO IT. Look at what Republicans are doing to adults, and to children. Banning trans kids from sports. Banning life-saving health care for trans kids. Making it a crime to help a trans kid be happy and comfortable in their own body.
But look at that map for kids again. Only five states still have strong protections for trans kids. Even ultra liberal California, where I live, isn’t great. Hospitals here have been capitulating to our fascist administration when they are not legally required to, even while gender-affirming care is still required to be covered by California state law. But if no one in power does anything to stop them from denying care to trans kids, then the law actually protecting care for trans kids is meaningless.
And with a transphobic (Democrat!) governor like Newsom who now agrees with Republican propaganda because he thinks it’ll help his election chances… where does that leave trans kids who need this lifesaving care in California? Many of them are up a creek without a paddle.
At least our state attorney general has our backs, and is leading the fight to protect gender affirming care for trans youth by suing the Trump administration over their unconstitutional attacks.
Note “lifesaving care” is not hyperbole.
Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.
And it’s not being trans that makes trans adults and trans kids suicidal (dysphoria is absolutely awful, but if you affirm them and help them, it gets better! Trans care is life-saving!), but it’s how impossible cis society makes it to exist as a trans person in this world. Again, see THE 2022 US TRANS SURVEY REPORT, part 4 and learn all about what we’re going through at the hands of cis people.
The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, all oppose all this anti-trans legislation and all of them agree that gender affirming care is necessary and lifesaving.
Here’s a table from the American Medical Association, from their paper titled Legislation to Criminalize Gender-Affirming Medical Care for Transgender Youth:
But bigoted Republicans think they know better than every legitimate professional medical organization. Does that sound familiar? With trans rights? With abortion rights? With COVID? Fucking atrocious.
Even worse, all this anti-trans legislation literally causes brain damage in trans kids from the trauma it induces.
Interventions designed to prevent, halt, or reverse non-cisgender experiences are known as conversion therapy. The scientific consensus is that these practices are “pseudoscientific,” and experts on torture have identified these pseudoscientific practices as “torture.” As such, these interventions represent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which are scientifically demonstrated to cause brain damage, life-long disabilities, and significantly shortened lifespans.
So what happens when a kid of any age realizes they’re transgender and wants to transition? Even though, for pre-pubescent kids, they really only transition socially, it’s obviously a very big decision. And it can be difficult for kids (especially the younger ones) to fully grasp everything that entails and the way life would change.
But you see, medical professionals… know that. They don’t take a trans kid and send them off for surgery. The rates are so low that basically no trans kids are getting surgery.
2.1 per 100,000 minors aged 15 to 17 years, 0.1 per 100,000 minors aged 13 to 14 years, and 0 procedures among minors aged 12 years or younger.
But intersex infants, who cannot consent? Republicans WANT to perform surgery on them to make them conform to the gender binary. In fact, bills banning surgeries for trans kids (which, again, aren’t happening) have specific carve-outs to allow surgeries on intersex infants!
More than two-thirds of the bills introduced this year that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth have specific intersex exemptions. The controversial exemptions allow doctors to assign minors who are born with secondary sex characteristics as “male” or “female” through surgeries, hormones or other interventions.
“So you’re saying that trans kids are too young to consent, but intersex kids aren’t?” asked Bria Brown-King, director of engagement for the intersex rights group InterAct. “How does that make sense?”
Some bills banning gender-affirming care for trans kids have been scuttled, by Republicans, because the wording would have prevented surgeries they want to force on intersex kids, and they absolutely cannot have that.
Iiiiiin faaaaact, cis boys are getting surgeries to help them conform to the binary far more than any trans kids are, and nobody ever says they shouldn’t be allowed, or don’t know what they’re doing, or we have to wait to “make sure it’s what they really want.”
The researchers found that, out of the nearly 22.8 million minors who were insured in the United States and sought care in 2019, only 85 received any gender-affirming surgery. Approximately 96.4% of that sample had received a chest-related surgery, and these surgeries were largely restricted to minors between 15 and 17. No surgeries were done on minors under age 12.
In a sample that combined transgender and cisgender minors, 150 breast reductions were done on youth. Of those, 146 (or 97%) of these surgeries were done on cisgender boys who had gynecomastia, the medical term for unwanted breast development in cisgender males.
Huh, so weirdly transparent. CIS PEOPLE GET GENDER AFFIRMING HEALTHCARE TOO.
The fucking hypocrisy of it all!
Transitioning for kids largely involves social transitioning only… wearing clothing that reflects their true gender, name/pronoun changes, things of that nature. But some, probably many, also go on puberty blockers, once they’re old enough to need them to stop the wrong puberty.
“Many” is relative here, mind you, as less than 1 in 1000 adolescents are getting any kind of hormone treatment! Like the trans sports “issue,” it’s a vanishingly small part of the population that we’re talking about, though republicans act like it’s absolutely everywhere all the time.
Now I can hear you saying… kids can’t make that decision! I mean, they can actually, but… did you know puberty blockers are safe, have been used for cis kids for decades to stop “precocious puberty,” and are not permanent?
When you stop taking the blockers, your body goes right back to making the hormone that was blocked. The puberty that was put on hold is no longer on hold, and happens normally. It has no permanent effects whatsoever. When older, they can then add in HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY if they want, and their body would then develop like a cis person’s of their gender.
Does it work? Does it make their lives better? Yes it does.
Over the observation period, participants demonstrated significant improvements in appearance congruence, psychological well-being, social satisfaction and self-efficacy and significant reductions in negative affect and negative social perception.
Let me remind you here of the utter hypocrisy of the people peddling the “trans people can’t play sports with people of their true gender” nonsense, because they say we’d have had to transition before puberty for it to be “fair,” which they will not actually let anyone do! Also it’s not unfair for trans women to compete with cis women at all, we have actual science to back it up. See TRANS SPORTS 1: ORIGINS AND “ADVANTAGES” and TRANS SPORTS 2: SCIENCE AND BIGOTRY to get the actual facts.
So why not make kids wait to take it until they’re 18? Yeah, let’s talk about that. Because by 18 a lot of the body changes caused by hormones have already happened! Puberty blockers are impermanent. You know what’s actually very permanent? The body changes from the wrong puberty!
The whole point is to give trans kids the time to make that decision before their body goes through the actual irreversible changes of that wrong puberty. For me, I got taller, my shoulders and jawline broadened, I grew facial hair and more body hair, my voice deepened. Most of what adult trans women struggle to deal with physically are the very things puberty blockers would have prevented. HRT cannot change any of those things!
I mean you’re all familiar with what testosterone does to a body during puberty, you get the drift. If I’d had access to puberty blockers before that happened… think about all the dysphoria I have that could have been avoided. Those bodily changes would not have happened.
Forcing a trans kid to go through a puberty that is antithetical to their gender is cruel. It’s legitimately torture. It’s forcing their body to change in ways that will make it more difficult for them to transition in the future, and will dramatically worsen the dysphoria they may have.
And again, dysphoria often comes with intense depression and anxiety and a lot of other mental health issues, including self-harm and sometimes people feeling like suicide is their only way out.
Imagine kids already on puberty blockers, who’ve socially transitioned. A 14 year old Tilly would’ve had no facial hair, been shorter, had narrower shoulders, a higher voice. She’d be dressing as a girl, and treated as one because she would be perceived as a girl.
And suddenly, without any warning or recourse, you take her puberty blockers away “for her own good?”
And now this 14 year old girl gets facial hair and a deep voice and her jaw and shoulders widen and what the fuck do you think that is going to do to her? How is that helping her?? You’re turning her into the last thing she wants to be.
It’s fucking unconscionable. Especially given that if she discovers she’s not actually trans, or just doesn’t want to medically transition, she can stop the puberty blockers and experience male puberty without any issues whatsoever! This enrages me to no end, and it should enrage you too.
Next week we’re going to talk about what’s involved for most trans kids in actually accessing this care, and the lengths good parents will go to in order to protect them.
You need to read it.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com