Protecting Trans Youth: Debunking Myths About Gender Affirming Care

This piece emphasizes the importance of gender-affirming care as a safe, flexible, and medically necessary approach to supporting transgender and gender-diverse youth, grounded in decades of research and endorsed by major medical organizations. Despite this consensus, more than 100 state-level bans have restricted access to care by spreading myths that treatments are rushed, irreversible, or dangerous—misconceptions that sharply contrast with reality, where most gender-affirming care involves talk therapy and careful psychological evaluation. Evidence consistently shows that timely access to puberty blockers or hormone therapy dramatically reduces depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among TGNC youth, a population already facing disproportionate mental health challenges due to stigma and discrimination. Bans not only deny life-saving care but also reinforce dehumanizing beliefs that trans lives are less valued. By dispelling misinformation and highlighting the well-documented benefits of gender-affirming care, the piece calls for protecting access to this essential, suicide-preventing healthcare.