As noted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), that identity can run anywhere along a continuum that includes man, woman, a combination of those, neither of those, and fluid. The interventions help transgender people align various aspects of their lives - emotional, interpersonal, and biological - with their gender identity. Gender-affirming care, as defined by the World Health Organization, encompasses a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with the gender they were assigned at birth. It’s much deeper than that,” says Jason Rafferty, MD, MPH, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist who provides gender-affirming care at the Gender and Sexuality Clinic at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. To put the controversy in context, several experts explain gender-affirming care. The AAMC joined other medical organizations in an amicus brief opposing the Texas order, arguing that extensive scientific evidence exists to support those therapies and that the law would force doctors to risk endangering their patients by not providing that care. Kay Ivey signed a bill last week that prohibits doctors from providing those treatments, while an order declaring those procedures illegal in Texas was halted last month by a court injunction pending the intervention of the state Supreme Court. The state actions focus on specific therapies under the umbrella of gender-affirming care: hormone-related treatments that delay puberty or promote development of masculine or feminine sex characteristics.
Iowa is among 15 states that have enacted or are considering laws to prohibit certain gender-affirming treatments for youths and to impose penalties on health care professionals who provide it, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law in California. To her, that care is “a medical necessity, like providing insulin to a person with diabetes.”īut a growing number of lawmakers, including in Iowa, view some gender-affirming care as medically unsound for youths and even a form of child abuse. “It decreases depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts,” says Imborek, co-director of the clinic. Katherine Imborek, MD, has seen the gender-affirming care provided at UI Health Care’s LGBTQ Clinic in Iowa City change the lives of transgender youths and adults.
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