• zweieuro@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Someone who knows this please tell me what I am misunderstanding, though this is not related particularly to this article.

    What is “gender affirming care”? When i hear that I am thinking of some racist dad who is forcing their son to go to some camp to get the gay ‘affirmed/corrected’ out of him or something along those lines.

    I feel like I keep misreading the different definitions of what is meant where and why.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Gender affirming care is for transgender people and it covers a lot of things, including but not limited to:

      • Hormones
      • Surgery (includes more than genital surgery, which kids don’t get)
      • Therapy
      • Choosing a new name and pronouns
      • Wearing clothes that match your gender expression
      • Getting a haircut that matches your gender expression
      • General support for exploring your gender and gender expression

      What you’re thinking of is called conversion therapy.

      • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Not all trans care sterilizes people, hormones don’t even necessarily sterilize people, and because this is in the context of trans care for kids I’m going to reiterate the obvious that children never get surgeries done. Minors might in the sense that rarely like 16-17+ person may be able to get some cosmetic stuff done but like we let cis kids do that anyway as long as it fits within their prescribed gender norm. Also we already make non-consensual surgery choices surrounding intersex people when they’re actual literal babies so where’s the “don’t surgery the kids” crowd on that topic?

      • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It also encompasses any support from medical professionals to do extremely simple shit like wear different clothes or change your hair. Also accessing gender-affirming support groups, therapy, changing your name and pronouns, or non-permanent hormone treatments.

        This new law doesn’t ban all of those things, but it does go pretty far to limit what can be done and has a chilling effect on other forms of trans-related healthcare.

        For instance, even if a kid wants to use a nickname that doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth, it has to be reported to their parents. Stuff like that is clearly just designed to make sure kids aren’t allowed to express that they’re trans if their parents don’t approve.