Contact: Lee Leveille
Co-Developer, Health Liberation Now!
Email: lee@healthliberationnow.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Easthampton, Massachusetts – It is with immense grief that we at Health Liberation Now witness the recent opinion put out by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Within, Paxton argues that gender affirming care for transgender youth is child abuse under Texas state law, citing medical disinformation from anti-trans lobby groups such as Society for Evidence Based Medicine and the initial Bell v Tavistock ruling in the United Kingdom. Despite the opinion’s reliance on these dubious lobby groups and overseas rulings that have been overturned, it has since come to light that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is instructing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families supporting trans youth. This is a horrific overreach of government power.
Just over a year ago, we launched with the warning that the Bell v Tavistock ruling would be used to roll back trans rights in the United States and other countries. We are now in year two of an onslaught of anti-trans bills, court battles, and authoritarian control from state institutions. In every instance, these attacks are led by the same mechanisms of Christian conservative dominionism. These actors cite instances of detransition or transition regret when arguing that gender affirming care is akin to abuse, all while ignoring shared medical needs and rights to bodily autonomy among transgender and detransitioned or retransitioned people.
The political weaponization of de/retransition needs by the Christian Right to oppose trans existence has been building for many years. Bridge-building efforts have been cut off by anti-trans organizing, further inflamed by conservative groups with their eyes locked on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. Using disinformation from special interest groups aiming at trans rights, the Christian Right is creating a humanitarian crisis by pitting transgender and de/retransitioned people against each other despite our shared stakes in trans health liberation.
This didn’t have to happen. The state abuses that trans youth face today could have been prevented if representatives had listened to trans community members about the efficacy of gender affirming care. It could have been prevented if they had listened to the broad consensus of medical associations, researchers, and professionals. And, in terms of resistance, we as community members would stand a far better chance if trans and detrans organizers could come together in solidarity against the Rightwing agenda to eradicate our collective existance.
As trans people who have been trans youth and have lived experience with changing course in gender transition, Health Liberation Now stands in solidarity with trans youth and their families. In Texas, throughout the US, and across the globe. We hear your pain; we share your outrage. Let that outrage shake the halls with our voices and the ground with our feet. Never again.
Health Liberation Now! is a free resistance resource offering critical insight into the gaps in transgender health and connected politics for transgender, detransitioned, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people. Everyone has the right to safe, effective, and compassionate health care that reflects the full spectrum of their needs, experiences, and right to self-determination. To learn more, visit https://healthliberationnow.com/.