Transgender Kansas youths’ families, not politicians, should make their own decisions | Opinion

Across the U.S., we have seen an onslaught of bills eroding the rights of transgender individuals. Here in Kansas, S.B. 233, which seeks to restrict transgender youths’ access to health care, is a particularly dangerous bill that must be stopped.

Considerable research has found that accessing gender-affirming care is linked to improved mental health outcomes for transgender youth. This care has the potential to reduce suicidal thoughts, depression and gender dysphoria for these young people. In sum, gender-affirming care is a critical aspect of mental health care for transgender kids.

Alarmingly, S.B. 233’s consequences are potentially even more devastating than other similar bills. Specifically, this legislation would make a rare effort to prohibit health care workers from providing transgender kids with support related to “social transitioning,” which includes “changing of an individual’s preferred pronouns or matter of dress.” The bill would impose strict sanctions — including loss of professional licenses — on providers who offer best practice care to transgender young people. This means that health care providers — including mental health practitioners, who are already in short supply in most of Kansas — could potentially be driven from practice for following well-established guidelines of care and supporting their clients with even the most basic efforts to present in alignment with their true gender identity.

As a social worker, this aspect of the bill is particularly concerning because social transition is often a crucial aspect of gender-affirming health care for transgender people. This bill would create barriers to mental health service providers engaging in even basic informational conversations with their transgender youth clients about social transition, precluding providers from supporting their clients with engaging in critical reflections about identity and self-expression, a fundamental element of mental health treatment for children and adolescents.

For transgender youth, social transitioning is associated with improvements in mental health, namely depression and anxiety. It is essential that physical and mental health care workers have the ability to support transgender youth with social transitioning, if the youth, their families and their providers determine that social transitioning would support the health and well-being of the young person.

In sum, the restrictions in this bill would prevent social workers and other mental health providers from doing their jobs effectively, and it is transgender youth who would suffer the most.

There is still time to prevent S.B. 233 from becoming a law. As a social worker and scholar of LGBTQ health, I encourage Kansans to take action to oppose this bill. In support of a more just and equitable state, where transgender youth have access to the crucial care that they need to thrive, I urge Kansans to use every advocacy tool we have to protect these young people and their access to health care.

Please encourage Gov. Laura Kelly to use her protective power to veto this damaging bill and insist that our legislators reject a policy that would cause unnecessary harm to transgender children and their families. It is not too late to do our part to protect transgender kids and ensure that they have access to health care that will help them to grow up to be happy and healthy adults.

Briana McGeough is a social worker and scholar living in Lawrence whose expertise is in supporting the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ people. She is writing in her capacity as a Kansas resident and not on behalf of the University of Kansas or any other organization.

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