In City Journal, Christina Buttons published a groundbreaking investigative report detailing how LGBT advocacy nonprofits actively work with doctors to help families circumvent state laws prohibiting access to youth gender medicine. As Buttons explains, these nonprofits offer families financial grants, travel assistance, and referrals to willing providers. However, some of these non-profits go a step farther than helping families access interventions out of state, with many helping families access these interventions in their home states where the practices are illegal. “Some providers and their staff discussed using diagnoses other than gender dysphoria to make it easier for families to obtain prescriptions or insurance coverage—a practice that has attracted fraud investigations in the past. Others described sending prescriptions to pharmacies in states with bans or mailing medications directly to patients’ homes, even though some state laws also prohibit supplying these drugs to minors for gender transition,” Buttons writes.
The Office of Justice programs has issued a notice of funding opportunity for researchers studying the relationship between gender dysphoria and violent crime. In particular, the notice of funding opportunity calls for “retrospective, secondary data analyses that explore gender dysphoria, its treatment, and the perpetration of violence and violent behavior,” including prevalence rates, post-conviction analyses, research on victim/offender overlap, and the impact of psychological comorbidities on the relationship between dysphoria and violence. While interested in foundational research, the OJP hopes that the research will have real world use cases for tribal and local law enforcement, practitioners, and stakeholders.
A new Manhattan Institute insurance analysis found markedly elevated rates of gender dysphoria diagnoses among teens, particularly girls, in Washington state between 2017-2023. What stands out from the analysis is how the number of diagnoses exceeds the best estimates from the DSM-5, with over 15,000 youth having dysphoria diagnoses between 2017-2023. According to the analysis, in 2022, 1.73 percent of Washingtonian teen girls (12–17) and 0.8 percent of teen boys had a diagnosis in their insurance claims. Among younger children (ages 8–12), the rates were 0.71 percent for girls and 0.16 percent for boys. As Sapir explains, the 2022 rates for teen girls are 600 times higher than DSM estimates, while for teen boys it was 60 times higher. “This project is inspired in large part by our belief that empirical gaps make it harder to obtain an accurate picture of gender-related diagnoses and practices—and thus harder to do what is best for young people,” Sapir adds.
According to Texas Children’s whistleblower, Vanessa Sidage, on Monday the hospital formally opened its detransition clinic for patients harmed by medicalization, which was a condition of the settlement agreement between the hospital and state and federal authorities. As part of the agreement, the hospital will cover all patient care for five years. According to Sidage, the hospital will offer corrective endocrinological and surgical interventions, primary care, fertility counseling, mental health services, social work, and speech pathology.
As we approach the midterm elections, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has chastised fellow Democrats for not coming out more forcefully in support of trans-identified Americans. While other Democrats have adjusted their rhetorical approach to meet voters where they are, Ocasio-Cortez has instead doubled down. “The moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen in America,” she recently said at a town hall event in Maine. Ocasio-Cortez went on to add that she supports trans rights, because she’s a “girl’s girl” which implies that there is no inherent conflict between sex-based rights, and rights based on “gender identity.” On the topic of sports participation, voters increasingly believe that girls and women should compete against other girls and women, not trans-identified boys and men.
According to Reuters, New Zealand's High Court has blocked a regulation prohibiting new puberty blocker prescriptions for dysphoric minors. While the government argued that the regulation was motivated by genuine concerns regarding the risks of puberty blockers and the uncertainty of benefits, the court determined that the government failed to fulfill its obligations under the Medicines Act which requires stakeholders to be informed about impending regulations.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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