According to a survey, 85% of LGBTQ+ youth reported that recent debates about anti-trans bills have negatively affected their mental health.
Charlie Apple had experienced people calling into question his humanity, suggesting he was just a confused kid or even a moral aberration. As a transgender teen, he had accepted that his future could include discrimination, verbal abuse and violence. The sense of peace he said he felt in transitioning physically, however, was worth the risk.
In the first week of 2022 alone, legislators in at least seven states proposed bills targeting LGBTQ+ youth. On Feb. 3, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed a bill banning transgender girls and college-age women from playing on female sports teams. It becomes the 10th state to pass such a ban. In a survey from The Trevor Project conducted last fall, 85% of LGBTQ+ youth reported that recent debates about anti-trans bills have negatively affected their mental health.
Mary Elizabeth Castle, a senior policy adviser for Texas Values, a faith-based advocacy organization that has worked to advance legislation banning gender-affirming care, said more bills are coming. Those pullbacks are especially concerning, said Pick, because LGBTQ+ kids are overrepresented in the child welfare system and are less likely than other children to have access to appropriate mental health and medical care or internet access outside of school or child welfare agencies. Compared with their peers, LGBTQ+ kids who have been in foster care also are more likely to report attempting suicide, according to The Trevor Project.
Dr. Jason Rafferty, a Rhode Island pediatrician and psychologist who authored a 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on supporting trans kids, said current political rhetoric and legislation are not grounded in science. Medical protocols for transgender people are not new, he said, adding that politicizing the delivery of medical care to transgender youth is both inappropriate and damaging.
"There is this exhaustion and this disappointment that we are still having these same conversations and these same fights over and over," said Trujillo.