Pro-Life Considerations
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other restrictive state-level bills threaten queer youth, limiting their capacity to learn about or express themselves in the same manner as cishet students.
Other proposed anti-trans bills would deny trans children access to gender-affirming therapy, surgeries, hormone therapy, and medical care for minors. They would also threaten to remove children from their parents’ custody and bar transgender youth from sports. Such bills could also be bad for business.
Overall, the villainization of trans bodies and identities is a concerted effort to strip away human rights and emaciate personal freedoms.
However, opposition to anti-trans legislation is suicide prevention.
According to Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, “By making it impossible for doctors to provide care for their patients, transgender youth are denied the age-appropriate, best practice, medically necessary, gender-affirming care that a new study just found reduces the risk of moderate or severe depression by 60% and suicidality by 73%.”
Trevor Project’s researchers published a 2021 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Adolescent Health which indicated gender-affirming hormone therapy significantly contributes to lower rates of depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth.
Suicide is already the leading cause of death among Americans aged 10-24, with the risk rising 400% for those who are queer. Another peer reviewed study found transgender and nonbinary youth are 50% less likely to attempt suicide when their pronouns are respected.
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