Resistbot
  1. United States
  2. Colo.
  3. Letter

Please vote against any bill that restricts access to gender affirming care.

To: Rep. Hurd

From: A constituent in Durango, CO

February 5

The executive order haulting gender affirming care at any institution receiving federal funding is affecting children and teens now. Children's hospitals are haulting initiation of treatment for gender dysphoria and trying to find options for those who were already receiving puberty blockers. I know that there is a lot of misinformation and villainizing around the treatment of gender dysphoria. I admit that until I had patients with it that I also thought it sounded crazy. I'd like to tell you about the patient who helped me understand. I had a 10 year old that I knew well come in for new suicidal thoughts. This patient was so smart and had this dry sense of humor that I still remember more than 10 years later. While I was trying to understand where this was coming from, they were ashamed to tell me. I finally convinced them to write it down. Their new suicidal thoughts were because they felt like they should be a girl, but they had just started puberty and now they felt like their body was betraying them. They felt like their body was betraying them. This was an eye opening experience for me. Puberty blockers delay puberty to buy teens time to figure out how they feel. Puberty blockers save lives. They prevent suicides. If patients decide they don't want to transition, they can stop the puberty blocker and go through puberty then. Yes, there is some risk to their bone health. Most parents and teenagers decide that this is better than suicide. This medication is different from hormonal treatment or surgeries. It is reversible. We can discuss the complexities of hormone treatment and surgeries. I will tell you that in my experience, patients are not allowed to access any of the irreversible treatments until after several years of therapy and living as their identified gender and at or very close to 18 years old. There may be stories of some people regretting their decision, but the vast majority are accessing this care responsibly. The government should not be making medical decisions for patients. Parents and the teens are the best ones to be making informed decisions for themselves. Please get the government out of people's medical decisions.

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