My Priorities

You lie about gender care. "Harrison says he felt shocked into action when he came to believe that young children were undergoing significant, irreversible surgeries. Harrison says he’s seen photos online that purport to show children who have undergone these procedures. There’s one problem with Harrison’s story: the photos do not evidence something happening to young children in Texas. Across the United States, medical guidelines already prevent gender-affirmation surgery for any prepubescent patient. The American Academy of Pediatricians has the official position that gender-affirmation bottom surgery should be reserved for patients older than eighteen, and that “top surgery” (mastectomies or breast augmentation) can be offered on a case-by-case basis for patients older than fifteen. Last August, PolitiFact tried to find instances of young patients receiving surgery, in response to claims from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis that surgeons were “literally chopping off the private parts of young kids.” It could only find a solitary example of someone younger than fifteen receiving top surgery—a double mastectomy. Reporters likewise found just one example of a patient younger than eighteen receiving “bottom surgery”: Jazz Jennings, a reality TV star, who underwent the procedure when she was just shy of her eighteenth birthday (Jennings socially transitioned when she was six years old). The other focus of Harrison’s legislation is an actual treatment being offered to young children. His bill would also outlaw puberty blockers—which delay the onset of puberty and can give children and their parents valuable time to decide what their long-term plans are—and other forms of hormonal therapies, such as testosterone or estrogen. Hormone treatments are supported by the pediatric community—and have been offered for decades to children who hit puberty at a very young age. The sorts of difficult decisions and trade-offs young transgender patients and their parents must navigate are similar to the decisions any child and parent might have to make about medical care. Every day in Texas, families make major choices that will affect their children’s future health and well-being. The risks of playing high school football, for instance, can be greater than those of puberty blockers. Doctors prescribe children steroids—a form of hormonal treatment—for hay fever, hives, sprained ankles, and a host of other conditions. And while mastectomies have become more common in recent years as a treatment for gender dysphoria, the number of teens getting “top” surgery is still dwarfed by the number of teenage girls getting cosmetic breast enhancement surgery before they’re eighteen. Harrison and other Republicans have not filed legislation targeting hormonal or cosmetic treatments offered to young patients in these other common scenarios, remaining focused on doctors who help young patients embrace trans identities."