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Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to make it a felony for doctors to give gender-affirming care to youth [1]
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Date: 2022-08-19
As of now, Greene’s bill has 11 co-sponsors (all of whom are Republicans). Is it likely this bill will be signed into law by President Joe Biden? Not remotely. Is it likely it will even pass the House? Also no. But it’s still dangerous.
Why? I worry conservatives are fully aware of what they’re doing when they push bills that are more and more outrageous, hateful, and frankly, discriminatory. No, all of these won’t go anywhere. But these horrendous bills normalize these beliefs as somehow legitimate enough that we should be respectfully engaging with them.
For example, seeing bills like this over and over begins to shift our concept of the “middle” or finding a “common ground” further and further to the right; while we’re fighting for trans folks to get basic protections, folks on the right are arguing for professionals who help trans folks to be put in jail. For people in the “middle” who aren’t educated on queer issues, it’s all too easy to sucked into anti-trans rhetoric and beliefs.
Other examples of this happening include trans girls playing sports and trans-inclusive pronoun policies at public schools. We have conservatives rushing to legislate based on hypothetical allegations and rumors, whereas real young people’s lives are hanging in the balance.
In the big picture, we know health care is already difficult to access for many people in this country, including trans folks. Depending on where you live, even trans adults struggle to find safe, affordable, and accessible gender-affirming health care. Youth can face all of those same struggles and more.
The ongoing effort to criminalize providing such care could result in an already limited number of specialists changing their minds about offering these lifesaving services, making it even harder for people to get the care they need. It could also result in efforts from insurance providers to cover less and less of this necessary care. Adding other layers of marginalization to the circumstances—like trans women of color, for example, or trans disabled youth—means there are even more barriers and obstacles to receiving health care.
It’s cruel. It’s a ripple effect. We have to be loud and proud in our allyship and advocacy with trans folks, especially those who are too young to even vote.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/19/2117625/-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-wants-to-make-it-a-felony-for-doctors-to-give-gender-affirming-care-to-youth
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