America's crackdown on transgender kids' care: Map shows how a red wave of bans on gender-affirming treatment for children has engulfed the Midwest and Southern states

Daily Mail UK ^ | July 25, 2023 | Alexa Lardieri

[Morgana]

Nationwide maps reveal how access to children's gender-affirming care is eroding across parts of America - as the issue becomes one of the key political battlegrounds heading into the 2024 Presidential Election.

The maps show how minors seeking this care, which can include hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and genital reconstruction, now have to travel as long as nine hours to receive the treatments.

Up until the wave of state bans began in 2020 and 2021, there were no restrictions at the federal level for access to these treatments, which in cases are irreversible.

As of May 2023, 20 states have enacted legislation, executive actions, or other policies that restrict or ban healthcare for transgender youths, and more than 100 additional bills are under consideration.

All of the states are Republican or Republican-leaning, and all but one voted for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

The new study published in JAMA used public directories, news articles, and archived clinical websites to identify clinics offering gender-affirming care for patients younger than 18 years old in the contiguous 48 US states and Washington, DC.

Data show that of 271 gender clinics, 70 were considered inactive under restrictions in 20 states.

Researchers calculated drive times from states where gender-affirming therapies are now prohibited to the nearest clinic that offers those medical services. They also calculated drive times to and from the same locations prior to prohibitions being enacted.

In states where no restrictions exist, the median drive time to clinics is 0.4 hours.

In states that currently have restrictions, the drive time to the nearest clinic before those restrictions were implemented was 0.8 hours. However, once the restrictions were put in place, the median travel time skyrocketed to 5.3 hours.

[Grampa Dave]

Chopping off healthy body parts is not “care” nor “a cure”!

[JimRed]

The maps show how minors seeking this care, which can include hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and genital reconstruction, now have to travel as long as nine hours to receive the treatments.

Chopping off good body parts and pumping kids full of opposite-sex hormones hardly qualifies as "care"!