Salt Lake City (AP) -As the Republicans of Utah in 2023 adopted a ban on gender health care for children and teenagers, they argued that it was necessary to protect children in need of protection against treatments that could harm long-term.
Years later, the results of a study commissioned by the same law contradict this claim, and the legislator conducted by Republicans is under pressure to rethink the restrictions.
Utahs Department of Health and Human Services and experts from the leading health organizations of the state, which were concluded from a study of thousands of transgender people who created gender-specific care for “positive mental health and psychosocial functioning results”.
Guidelines that prevent access to hormone therapy for minors cannot be justified in the future due to scientific knowledge or concerns regarding potential regret in the future.
The agency does not take a position as to whether the legislator should collect the nationwide prohibition of hormone therapy and operations for minors. But the legislators reminded that they had intended that the ban was temporarily before the state was able to carry out its own research.
Utah belongs to 27 states that have passed laws that restrict or prohibit gender-specific medical care for transgender-mindle-year-olds who have made Republican politicians a political lightning shelf. Federal judges have depressed bans in Arkansas, Florida and Montana as unconstitutional, although a federal state court has recorded Florida’s judgment. The law in Kansas is not yet enforced.
Some Republicans in Utah said they were open to considering the results of the study, while others would have released them quickly.
In a joint statement, the house sponsor of the law on the care of the gender-specific care of 2023 and the chairman of the interim health committee of the legislation said that they “intend to keep the moratorium on the spot”.
“Young children and teenagers should not make life -changing medical decisions based on weak evidence,” said Republican representative. Katy Hall and Bridger Bolinder. “Simply put, science is not there, the risks are real and the public is with us.”
All major medical organizations in the United States consider gender-specific care as protected, effective and medically necessary for transgender youth. However, the surveys show that the restrictions of the Republicans operate to access transgender children to care representatives among voters.
The President of the Senate Stuart Adams said that he was obliged to check the report. The Republican leader previously proposed that children and adolescent people are too adolescent to agree to the treatments.
Children who question their gender identity are generally given advice and are prescribed in puberty blockers or hormones. Gender operations such as operations to transform the chest or genitals are rarely carried out on minors.
“The future and security of children is of the greatest importance,” said Adams. “That is why Utah has explained a law to protect the long -term health and well -being of minors and at the same time to examine the careful examination of the developing medical landscape to examine recent and irreversible procedures for minors.
The democratic leader of Utah, MP Angela Romero and Sen. Luz Escamilla, ask their Republican colleagues to take more time to check the more than 1,000-page report before deciding the future of the ban.
According to the law, children who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria before January 2023 were still hormones. The University of Utah closed its health clinic for LGBTQ+ adolescent people at the beginning of this month after the law significantly reduced the number of patients. Doctors who offer minors in violation of the prohibition of gender -specific care could lose their licenses and be exposed to criminal charges.
The report created for the legislator recognized certain risks associated with gender care, including an augment in some types of benign brain tumors. However, experts emphasized the positive effects of such treatments in the reduction of suicide risic in transgender youth.
“Patients who were seen in the gender clinic before the age of 18 had a lower risk of suicide than in patients called adults,” the report said. “If you remain untreated, people with gender dysphoria can experience mental and social damage.”
The report in Utah is in contrast to one that was published by the government of President Donald Trump at the beginning of this month, which was widely recognized by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The US Minister of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not published any information about who wrote the report and said huge medical groups that they were not consulted.
Trump’s instructions rather require behavioral therapy than medical interventions for children who experience a separation between their gender identity and gender assigned to birth. This is followed by an executive regulation that Trump issued in his second term, in which the federal government must not support gender -specific transitions for people under the age of 19.
