Opinion: Gender-affirming care is life-saving for kids like mine

On Jan. 28, when I read the executive order from the White House: PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION,  I was shocked. Mutilation. That word, it stung. I panicked. I contacted our child’s gender clinic doctor and learned that they were already fighting to keep their doors open.

For hours, I worried. I cried. I thought about the ways this could turn out. I tried landing on hope. I kept falling on fear. I have a 14-year-old transgender child. He came out as non-binary and a year later decided that he wanted to live life male. Nobody “convinced” him that he was trans, no one “taught him” to be trans. He just IS trans. We love him unconditionally and embraced his choice from the start. When he bravely changed his name and pronouns in the 6th grade, most people at his school lovingly accepted him. We are lucky we live in a state where he is mostly safe and protected.

In the lead up to my son’s transition, there was a two-year wait list for gender-affirming care. During that time, his mental health suffered mightily. He experienced severe depression and extreme body and gender dysphoria. He self-harmed on multiple occasions and attempted suicide twice. A lot was riding on that first appointment. In fact, everything was.

Gender-affirming health care, as defined by a Columbia University Department of Psychiatry report from 2022, is “individualized and focused on the needs of each individual by including age and developmentally appropriate psychoeducation about gender and sexuality, parental and family support, social interventions, and gender-affirming medical interventions.” It is well documented that transgender and non-binary adolescents and young adults experience anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation at much higher rates than their cisgender peers.

According to The Trevor Project’s 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 54% of young people who identified as transgender or nonbinary (TGNB) reported having seriously considered suicide in the last year, and 29% have made an attempt to end their lives. In contrast, numerous research studies have found that gender-affirming care leads to improved mental health among TGNB youth.” The report further finds that 60% of transgender and non-binary youth reported engaging in self-harm in the past year. These findings are consistent with other well-documented studies.

In contrast, numerous research studies have consistently found that gender-affirming care leads to improved mental health among transgender and non-binary youth and has reduced the rates of self-harm and suicides in this community.

The new administration speaks of family values. Clearly we don’t all share these same values. My family values are to ensure that my family is safe and healthy. Without gender-affirming care, my son would be neither. After his first clinic appointment, a whole new world of possibility, of hope and joy, opened up in him. Hope that one day soon, under the guidance and care of a qualified medical professional, he can live life feeling comfortable in his own body. Joy has returned to his heart — and to our home.

This executive order is politically motivated, cruel and based on ignorance, not on facts. Until you sit in the ER, waiting 10-12 hours for a mental health assessment, all the while frantically hoping there’s an open bed at a facility that will keep your child safe, or unless you are a well-trained mental health professional, you are not qualified, nor should you be able, to decide what kind of care a person can or cannot have.

Amy-lynn Fischer is a mother of twin boys, a nonfiction writer working on a book about the medical industry and body trauma and works in niche magazine publishing as a sales director.