Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder where a person believes they are born a sex that they do not align with or identify as. Gender-affirming care is an aid process that allows minors to mutilate their sexual organs in order to align with their chosen identity. It has prompted many lawmakers to develop bills to either restrict or ban the treatment. About 20 states have already made efforts to restrict organ mutilation for confused youth, some of these states include Florida, Illinois, West Virginia and Iowa. Gender-affirming care is child abuse and should be unavailible to minors in the state of Michigan because it violates the due-process and equal-protection rights of children and their families.
Doctors can provide a variety of treatments to people under the age of 18 who are experiencing psychiatric discomfort as a result of their biological sex and gender “identity” not matching, or who identify as transgender. Options include reversible puberty blockers and certain procedures. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott (R) sent agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into gender-affirming care when the state attorney general stated that such treatments are a form of “child abuse”. Abbott signed a bill on June 3, 2023 to ban hormone and puberty blocking treatments, as well as surgeries, for transgender minors. It was set for effect on September 1, 2023. Top operations are among an array of medical procedures available to transgender teens prior to reaching the age of adulthood in their specific country, which in the United States of America is 18.
In Oct. of 2022, Michigan lawmakers presented House Bill 6454 which seeks to define gender-affirming care for minors as first-degree child abuse. According to the bill, a medical professional and guardian will be found guilty of first-degree child abuse, which is punishable by life in prison, if they “knowingly or intentionally” cause substantial physical or mental trauma to a child, including assisting the child in obtaining a “gender transition procedure.” Beau LaFave, a Michigan House Representative, stated that providing gender-affirming medical treatments and surgical procedures to minors who are not legally capable of consenting to having sex is “logically incoherent”.
“The idea that we would be making potentially life-altering changes to 11, 12, 13, 14[and] 15-year-old kids when it is illegal for them to have sex is insane. I mean, they’re not responsible enough to smoke a cigarette until they’re 21,” Lafave said. Standards in the U.S. state that children should not receive gender-affirming genital mutilation surgery until the age of 18. However, The World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommends that it be carried out “preferably after ample time of living in the desired gender role and after one year of testosterone treatment.”
Given these concerns, gender-affirming care is a method to coerce children into fully identifying as someone other than their biological self. Given at birth you are either biologically male or female. Given that gender dysphoria means that you are confused about your sexual identity, children should not be permitted to have surgeries that could alter their sexual identity forever. If children cannot legally vote, own a firearm, or any other age 18 requirement, they cannot have the ability to alter their sexual identity.
