Max Robinson December 1st, 2023 To the members of the Government Oversight Committee: My name is Max Robinson. I am a detransitioned lesbian. I accessed pediatric gender services as a teenager in California. I started testosterone at 16, changed my legal sex to male, and had a mastectomy at 17. I stopped testosterone and changed my sex marker back to female at 20; I am 28 now and live my life as a lesbian woman with facial hair and no breasts. I have mild/moderate urinary stress incontinence as a result of stage 1/2 pelvic organ prolapse my pelvic floor physical therapist told me is from testosterone. I am against bans on pediatric gender transition. Demand for transitional medicine waxes and wanes, but at its peaks, it remains a fringe issue affecting almost no one. Those of us who stop transition are a minority of a minority. The push for legislation on pediatric transition as opposed to underage cosmetic medicine more broadly, which affects many times as many American teenagers, reveals the hypocrisy of those who claim respect for bodily integrity as their justification. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people like myself who are not able to or interested in conforming to gendered expectations, so I cannot believe that cosmetic interventions represent the best possible way to treat distress around our appearances or how we are treated. I think it speaks to how intolerant our society is that most people who utilize this technology are glad they did, and that doctors who provide this care believe doing so represents profound acceptance of difference rather than pathologization of it. I wish no physician was comfortable providing cosmetic medicine, and that nobody wanted it performed on them. I don't believe children with families and communities who have always truly celebrated them for who they are would feel the need to have their gender nonconformity medicalized. That's my opinion on this culture war. My opinion shouldn't be the law, and neither should yours. Clinical practice is best determined by clinicians. Medical practices evolve in response to data, and the data on this subject is far from conclusive at this time. Trained specialists are far better equipped to interpret it than legislators. For example, I hear it on good authority from an Ohioan that the pediatric gender clinics there prescribe hormones pretty sparingly, and don't actually perform any underage transitional surgeries. Other states do, though. The resources spent on pushing for these bans could have been spent exploring how best to support those who detransition or what strategies other than transition may represent meaningful options for people with gender dysphoria. Bans drive clinicians and families trying to support their children out of state, they drive use of low quality remote gender care services online, and they heighten stigma against gender nonconforming children. There are many productive ways to engage with concerns about the ethics of pediatric transition, and to end the worship of heterosexual conformity that makes transition coherent by defining the woman-hating gender roles we must move within or outside of. This isn't one of them. Max Robinson Ohio HB 68 Direct Link to PDF Ciara December 1st, 2023
To the members of the Government Oversight Committee: I'm a 21 year old lesbian, biologically female, and I received gender affirming care as a teenager in Illinois. I was put on testosterone at 19 and I now struggle with a sever vocal handicap and sexual dysfunction among many other problems as a direct result of testosterone being given to me without much care. I've spent over a year and a half being tossed from one doctor to another to try to solve the physical pain I've been left in. They're stumped for obvious reasons, there's no standard of care for those that detransition. (I'm reading my words back and I'd also like to add: Is the health of trans people truly being considered, when they're being left without care if they decide they want to go back?) It took me one appointment to receive testosterone, and it was around one or two hours long. Comorbid health conditions were not at all taken into consideration, mental or physical. The clinic I received this care form also failed to inform me of many health risks that may come with the administering of testosterone on my consent form, including but not limited to: risk of sleep apnea, sexual dysfunction, possible necessity of a total hysterectomy, and the very real risk of a shortened lifespan. I'm currently in the process of pursuing legal action against my clinic for medical malpractice. Despite this, I'm still against an outright ban on pediatric transition. I think transitional care is vague and messy as it stands now. In no other medical setting do you get to diagnose yourself and essential self-medicate based off of that decision. The truth though is, the majority of people that medically transition are still happy with that choice as of now. Does that mean it's healthy? No, and it doesn't have to. A lot of decisions we make in life aren't healthy, even if they make us happy. Where does that land people like me? Does banning this care ultimately do anything for anyone already hurt by or planning to transition? Will it help detransitioners left with health effects and nowhere to go to receive specialized care? Will it stop young people from transitioning, or will they just go somewhere else to get it that isn't as safe, like buying hormones that are readily available online and administering them at home without guidance from a medical professional? I don't think a ban would stop them. If you've talked to anyone set on transition I think you'd agree. I was set on transition. It feels like a life or death scenario, and people are very often told it is. Of course they'd just go somewhere else. Do you want to help people who are planning on transitioning, or those who regret it? Banning transition won't. It's cutting the head off a hydra. We need to set high standards for the care dysphoric people are receiving, and that includes more safety nets to save people who would be hurt by transitional care. More research into the effects of hormones on people's bodies. More therapy, more awareness of how race, sex, cultural background, trauma and other things can cause someone to desire transition as a way to ease the pain they're in. Less ignoring the root causes of dysphoria, of medical professionals shamelessly acting like somehow we can be born hating our own bodies, or even be born in the wrong ones. True and unbiased care is needed desperately. That's all I have to say. Ciara Ohio HB 68 Direct Link to PDF Comments are closed.
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