As Daily Kos continues to cover, both trans folks and people who provide safe, age-appropriate, gender-affirming health care have been under attack, thanks to both Republicans in office and far-right conspiracy theorists online, like the infamous Libs of TikTok. While conservatives have tried to attack trans folks (and queer people more broadly) via book bans, bathroom bills, and anti-trans sports bills, access to life-saving gender-affirming health care has become a battleground just in time for midterm elections. And hospitals providing such care are facing literal threats over it.
On Monday, three of the top medical associations (the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Children’s Hospital Association) asked the Department of Justice to investigate threats made against physicians providing gender-affirming care to youth, as covered by The 19th. These groups, for context, represent more than 200 hospitals and 270,000 physicians across the nation.
As Daily Kos previously covered, these threats included, among other things, “carrying out bomb threats” and other violent threats against both physicians and hospitals overall.
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In a press release from Moira Szilagyi, who serves as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, she (accurately) points out that all patients seeking treatment “deserve to get the care they need without fear for their personal safety,” whether it’s trans health care, cancer treatments, or babies fighting for life in intensive care units. Szilagyi added that we can’t stand by while threats of violence are launched at both workers and patients.
As some background context, Libs of TikTok is a vehemently anti-trans social media account that tends to go viral by posting inflammatory far-right content to its enormous following. For example, after the account posted incorrect information about the kind of gender-affirming care Boston Children’s Hospital offers to trans youth, the hospital got a literal bomb threat, among other harassment.
Other hospitals, like Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, canceled family support groups for trans youth after they received threats. In Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health transitioned to virtual appointments over threats.
"As physicians, we condemn groups that promote hate-motivated intolerance and toxic misinformation that can lead to grave real-world violence and extremism and jeopardize patients' health outcomes," American Medical Association President Jack Resneck Jr. said in a statement.
These circumstances are yet another reason to contextualize gender-affirming care alongside reproductive health care and, specifically, abortion access. Republicans are attacking bodily autonomy, personal medical decisions, and our own privacy. It’s demeaning, dangerous, and, frankly, escalating quickly.
Most Democrats and progressives are on board with a person’s right to get safe, affordable, and accessible reproductive health care, and gender-affirming care for trans folks should be no different. We just need to make sure Republicans don’t win in their efforts to stigmatize and confuse people, especially around election season.
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