VOTE NO to Dangerous and Discriminatory H.R. 498

Congress must defend the rights of their constituents to access medically necessary care and to defend the rights of doctors, rather than Dan Crenshaw, to determine what treatments patients have access to. I urge you to protect the health and well-being of transgender and gender-diverse youth by VOTING NO on this extreme bill: Dan Crenshaw’s H.R. 498. H.R. 498 is an extreme, overreaching, and overtly discriminatory bill that aims to block transgender and gender-diverse people from accessing safe, effective, and medically necessary healthcare based on purely ideological objections to gender diversity. But the healthcare these bills seek restrict access to is nothing like how the bill characterizes it. This bill have no intention of protecting children or addressing the real issue of skyrocketing health care costs in the U.S., as is evidenced by its explicit exemptions for procedures performed on intersex infants and the provision of the same care for cisgender youth. This bill is plain and simple governmental overreach. The decision to receive this healthcare should be left to medical experts, patients, and the caregivers who facilitate access to this care, not lawmakers driven by an ideological obsession with trans youth’s bodies. If you do not stand against this bill, anti-trans extremists will be emboldened to escalate discriminatory restrictions on access to more types of healthcare. I ask that Congress oppose this legislation, because trans people deserve access to this medically necessary care and because this bill is the first step in a path of further discriminatory attacks on the health of LGBTQI+ people, those who seek reproductive care, people of color, people with disabilities, and the working poor. Healthcare providers have been safely providing transition-related healthcare to gender-diverse adolescents for well over four decades, in keeping with medical best practices, scientific evidence, and rigorous standards of care. Over the last four+ decades a compelling and rigorous body of evidence has been produced, which demonstrates that this healthcare is safe and effective for adolescents and is potentially lifesaving for many. The healthcare that this legislation seeks to criminalize has been proven to reduce rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, disordered eating, and suicidality amongst trans people of all ages. By criminalizing the provision of this medically necessary healthcare, this bill endangers the lives and wellbeing of tens of thousands of trans youths. It is for these reasons that nearly every legitimate medical and behavioral health association, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, has declared their support for the value and medical necessity of this healthcare for transgender and gender-diverse youth. I urge you to protect the right of all Americans to access the healthcare they need. I urge you to VOTE NO on Dan Crenshaw’s dangerous and discriminatory bill. Thank you for your consideration.