Trans Adults Officially Being Detransitioned In Missouri: "I'm Scared And Don't Know What To Do"

[icymist]

On April 13th, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey signed a decree that banned most gender affirming care for transgender adults in the state. This set of guidelines, reminiscent of targeted restrictions on abortion providers also known as TRAP laws, makes most care in the state impossible to administer. As a result, doctors that provide gender affirming care statewide have had to pull their trans patients off of their medication, forcing them to medically detransition. The Missouri order is one of the cruelest in the country, and is part of a new wave of laws that target adult care.

The Missouri ban outlines numerous stipulations for clinics offering care, effectively making it illegal or too legally precarious to provide such services. One particularly troublesome requirement mandates that transgender individuals must have depression and anxiety resolved prior to receiving gender-affirming care. Coupled with another condition stating that dysphoria must be "intense," clinics that successfully address depression and anxiety to comply with the first stipulation may then be informed that their patients' dysphoria was not "intense" enough. This creates a clear Catch-22, particularly since gender-affirming care often alleviates depression and anxiety on its own.

...For transgender adults already receiving care, a questionable "grandfather" clause purportedly allows them to continue treatment. However, in practice, this is not the case. Clinics must still retroactively adhere to all other regulations, even for transgender adults who have been grandfathered into their care. Compliance with some of these regulations is unattainable, such as evaluating "transgender social contagion," an unproven pseudoscientific concept that clinics have no means to assess.

Additionally, the mandate requires clinics to maintain 15-year follow-up records, distribute misleading informational pamphlets, ensure that patients are evaluated by a psychologist for unspecified developmental psychology concerns, and maintain extensive paperwork detailing compliance with these regulations. Ultimately, the directive imposes sudden and strict infrastructure requirements, similar to Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws used to close abortion clinics. As a result, transgender individuals' access to medication is effectively restricted or eliminated at all levels.

https://erininthemorn.substack.com/p/trans-adults-officially-being-detransitioned