The Christian Post's top 10 stories of 2023 (part 1)
9. Some states ban, others create ‘right’ to sex-change procedures for kids
2023 saw a noticeable increase in the number of states that banned some or all sex-change procedures for minors. At the beginning of this year, only three states had passed laws prohibiting body mutilating procedures, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones: Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas.
Additionally, the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine had banned minors from obtaining puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender transition surgeries. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Jaime Masters also classified disfiguring sex-change surgeries as a form of child abuse.
By the end of 2023, the number of states with bans on some or all sex-change procedures for minors had grown to nearly two dozen. Currently, the list of states that have passed laws prohibiting children younger than 18 from obtaining body-mutilating procedures includes: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
On the other hand, the number of states that took action to create a “right” to obtain so-called “gender-affirming care” also dramatically expanded this year. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed into law a measure that established “gender-affirming health care services” as a “legally protected” activity earlier this year.
According to the LGBT Movement Advancement Project, which supports such legislation, eight additional states enacted “shield” or “refuge” laws that protect access to “transgender healthcare” in 2023: Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Governors of three additional states enacted “shield” or “refuge” executive orders this year: Arizona, Maryland and New Jersey.
These states joined California, Maryland and Massachusetts as states creating a right to gender transition procedures, bringing the total to 14.
Efforts to prohibit minors from obtaining sex-change procedures come as concerns about their long-term effects gained new attention this year. The American College of Pediatricians has listed the potential side effects of puberty blockers as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, cognitive impairment and, when combined with cross-sex hormones, sterility.” Meanwhile, the organization warns that cross-sex hormones can cause “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers.”
As for the long-term effects of body-mutilating sex-change surgeries that remove healthy body parts from trans-identified youth and/or create artificial body parts that cannot function, this year prominent detransitioner Chloe Cole filed a lawsuit against the medical providers who treated her for her gender dysphoria, elaborating on the negative impacts of her double mastectomy. According to the complaint, Cole experienced suicidal thoughts after having her breasts removed.
Additionally, the lawsuit attributes Cole’s “deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system” to the “gender dysphoria treatment” she received as a minor.
Pictures shared by the office of Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis showing unsightly scars left behind from the double mastectomy performed on a trans-identified minor as well as the removal of forearm tissue to create a fake, flaccid penis in trans-identified females also received attention earlier this year.
At the beginning of the year, a whistleblower who used to work at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, wrote an op-ed for The Free Press outlining how she left her job as a case worker there because she concluded that the medical community was “permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.” She illustrated examples of some of the severe side effects of trans-identified minors given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
“Voices drop, beards sprout, body fat is redistributed. Sexual interest explodes, aggression increases, and mood can be unpredictable,” she wrote. The whistleblower also mentioned how a boy prescribed a puberty blocker had to go to the hospital after experiencing liver toxicity and breast development.
Another example of harm caused by sex-change procedures mentioned in the piece was a 17-year-old girl who was prescribed testosterone suffering heavy vaginal bleeding that “soaked through an extra heavy pad, her jeans, and a towel she had wrapped around her waist.” The clinic later determined that the girl had intercourse.
“Because the testosterone thins the vaginal tissues, her vaginal canal had ripped open,” the op-ed piece added. “She had to be sedated and given surgery to repair the damage. She wasn’t the only vaginal laceration case we heard about.”
In another case detailed in the op-ed, a girl prescribed testosterone witnessed her clitoris take on the appearance of a “tiny penis” that “now extended below her vulva, and it chafed and rubbed painfully in her jeans.”
After the whistleblower’s testimony prompted the Missouri Attorney General to open an investigation into the clinic and the state enacted a ban on gender transition services for minors, the Washington University Transgender Center stopped prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to trans-identified youth.
Ryan Foley contributed to this report.
