Which is it, NPR? Medical care or gender affirming care? They are NOT the same thing. More like opposites.

Title:

Trump pushes an end to medical care for transgender youth nationally

Lede:

Access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth will be dramatically restricted by the Trump administration under new proposals by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Gender-affirming care” is not medical care. It may be carried out under medical auspices, but it’s not medical. It doesn’t treat any illness or injury, it doesn’t repair or mitigate any handicap, it doesn’t make recipients more healthy, it doesn’t inoculate against any disease. It’s arguably medical malpractice.

It does apparently make some people happier than they were, and being happier is a good thing, but it’s a very risky way of going about it, and is disastrous for some. The happiness can last a tragically short time and morph into anguish that doesn’t go away. In any case it remains not medical.

Both supporters and opponents of transgender rights agree that, taken together, the forthcoming rules could make access to pediatric gender-affirming care across the country extremely difficult, if not impossible. The care is already banned in 27 states.

Stop right there, NPR. Opponents of “gender-affirming care” don’t agree that the rules could make access to pediatric gender-affirming care across the country difficult, because they don’t consider it care. It’s neither established fact nor obvious that cutting off teenage girls’ breasts and teenage boys’ penises is any kind of care. There are people who loudly claim it is, but they’re wrong.

“These rules would be a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on access to transgender health care,” says Katie Keith, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown University.

Again. It’s not health care. It may be attempted health care, or attempted relief of psychological misery, but that’s not the same as health care. Calling it health care is of course yet another way of fooling the public into thinking transing people is more benign and safe and medically sound than it is.

“These rules would be a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on access to transgender health care,” says Katie Keith, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown University.

…

Instead of health and safety standards, this proposal would instruct hospitals “to stop offering a certain type of care completely to a certain patient population,” she says.

But what if it’s not care? What if it’s the opposite of care? What if it’s mutilation and disrupting puberties? What if it’s all been a horrible mistake that will remind future generations of the lobotomy craze?

“There are real people behind all this,” says Eyer, who is also the parent of a transgender child. “People are really scared and suffering as a result of this onslaught of attacks on the trans community.”

But what if all the maiming and puberty-disrupting are the attacks? What if what is called “transgender care” is really a medical scandal in progress? What if thousands of people are going to spend the rest of their lives wishing they hadn’t fucked up their bodies when they were teenagers? What then???

Gender-affirming care for youth — including puberty blocking medications, hormones, and rarely, surgery — does not actually violate federal law, Eyer notes. And, despite recent political pressure, no major U.S. medical organization has altered their clinical guidance that supports these treatments as appropriate and safe.

Which is shocking. Even if you believe in the ideology it’s hard to see how anyone can be really confident that the mutilations are safe. How can they be sure it’s safe to amputate healthy breasts or genitalia?

I suppose we’ll never know.