Calli Recore

On Sept. 1, 2023, 774 new bills were set to be made into law in Texas. One of these bills is Senate Bill 14, which would make it impossible for the transgender youth of Texas to access gender-affirming care. SB14 would also effectively make it lawful for doctors to be stripped of their licenses for providing this life-saving care to their patients. However, physicians and family members of transgender children sued the state of Texas before the bill was able to be made into law on the first. 

Maria Cantú Hexsel, 53rd District Court Judge, granted a temporary injunction, but the attorney general’s office appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, ultimately pausing Cantú Hexsel’s decision. Plaintiffs attempted to get the Texas Supreme Court to temporarily block the law, but they were unsuccessful. Many of the negative statements made by right-wing politicians regarding gender-affirming care are not rooted in facts but rather used as scare tactics to frighten people and bring them to their side. While lawmakers and politicians advocating for this bill claim that they are protecting children, the majority of the scientific community does not back their claims. 

Major medical organizations such as the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and the World Medical Association are all in agreement that gender-affirming care is greatly beneficial and medically necessary for transgender individuals. There is also an overwhelming amount of evidence from scientific studies that show gender-affirming care greatly decreases the chance of suicide in trans youth. A recent study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine spanning two years and involving 315 transgender people showed staggeringly positive results in the mental health of those receiving gender-affirming care. This study was not the exception. The real question is: If science does not back their claims, why are Republicans still making these laws? 

The answer is simple. These politicians and lawmakers do not agree with people living a different lifestyle than theirs and are using their power to condemn these people for daring to be different. They are taking these people’s rights away and greatly decreasing their quality of life just because they do not like them. This is not only unconstitutional but also morally wrong. For the party that claims to value freedom more than anything else, it is a shock that they should try to forbid others from living freely in their identities. With ideologies of the GOP strongly centered around the ideas of our founding fathers and the Declaration of Independence, the unalienable rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — should be extended to our trans brothers and sisters.