States Dropping Gender Affirming Care for Minors

In Missouri and North Dakota, some healthcare providers are dropping gender-affirming care for minors despite it being legal in both states.

The services being dropped include access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy. In Missouri, providers are dropping care because of a recent law passed holding providers liable up until a patient is 36 years old if the patient was harmed by the treatment, with a minimum damage award of $500,000. This law seems to be playing off the recent trend of outspoken detransitioners—individuals who came out as transgender and later reverted back to presenting as the gender they were assigned at birth. These rare cases are held up by the conservative community as examples of people who regret their medical transitions. 

In North Dakota, providers are similarly dropping care like in Missouri. But where some providers have chosen to offer one form of gender affirming care versus another, it appears that some North Dakota providers have chosen to stop providing gender affirming care for minors at all despite the law not stating that it is illegal. Profit plays a factor, and practices are afraid of the potential of losing money in settlements down the line. In a report by The Associated Press, executive director Jasmine Beach-Ferrara of the Campaign for Southern Equality reports that even some psychiatrists and pharmacists have stopped providing and filling hormone prescriptions for minors—which, again, is not illegal under the law. 

Young transgender individuals have been hurt both mentally and physically by both the laws put into place and providers dropping their gender-affirming healthcare as a result of fear mongering tactics by conservative lawmakers. In North Dakota, 12-year-old Tate Dolney and his mother, Devon Dolney, now have to make a five hour drive to Minnesota for his medical appointments. Devon says, “It’s not right, and it’s not fair that our own state government is making us feel like we have to choose between the health and well-being of our child and our home” as reported by The Associated Press.

As more and more laws across the states are put forward attempting to ban gender affirming care for minors, it seems many other families may also be forced to make the choice between the physical and mental health of their child and their home.