Alabama Trans Youth Dismayed By State's Effort To Block Medical Care : NPR - 0 views
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So Hall is watching with alarm as the Alabama legislature advances bills that would outlaw hormone treatment for him and other trans youth in the state.
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Thinking of the bills' proponents, he says, "Why should some guy who has never met me ... why should he get to tell me what I can and can't do? Why does he get to decide what is right for people who just want to be happy?"
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Alabama is one of 20 states that have introduced bills that would prohibit gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.
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Alabama's bill is one of the toughest. It would make it a felony to provide transition-related medical treatment, such as puberty blockers, hormones or surgery, to transgender minors.
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Hall was assigned female at birth. But, he says, when he hit puberty around fifth grade, "That's when I started to fully get uncomfortable with, like, the way that I looked or the way that I felt. Like, in my head I looked a different way than I looked in the mirror."
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This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement calling bills that prohibit trans medical care, or that ban trans girls from women's sports teams, "dangerous."
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It passed overwhelmingly in the state Senate, by a vote of 23-4, and could go before the full House as early as this week.
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At a House health committee hearing this month, lawmakers heard an impassioned plea from Sgt. David Fuller with the Gadsden, Ala., police department, who is father to a transgender girl.
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Those who treat transgender youth say remarks like these are not just factually wrong; they also stigmatize an already marginalized and vulnerable population.
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The swift progress of the trans medical care ban through the Alabama legislature has caused anxiety for families like theirs.
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She points out that in their Birmingham clinic, no minor child is making the decision for treatment on their own. There is a detailed informed-consent process, and the child, their parents and the entire medical team all have to agree on a treatment plan.
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But if the Alabama bill becomes law, she and her medical team could be charged with class C felonies for prescribing puberty blockers or hormones.
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LGBTQ advocacy groups are gearing up for immediate court challenges if any of the medical care bans bubbling up around the country become law.
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For Hall, Alabama's legislation would deny something essential: the person he knows himself to be. And, he says, the notion that he's a "gender-confused child" who's just "going through a phase" causes real pain.