Faith, politics and LGBTQ rights are more complicated than it can appear at first glance.
(The Conversation) — In 2022, Republican politicians proposed more than 150 billslimiting trans rights in state legislatures across the country. By February 2023, the GOP had already surpassed that record by proposing over 200 similar bills.
Many of these bills would legislate access to hormone replacement therapy for transgender individuals, making it illegal — and in some cases, criminal — for adolescents to receive such treatments. The first to make it into law in 2023 was Utah’s SB 16, “Transgender Medical Treatments and Procedures,” which Gov. Spencer Cox signed on Jan. 28.
Across the country, though, just over half of Americans are opposed to such laws. In a survey of 2,500 adults conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in September 2022, only 1 in 4 strongly favored laws that prevent parents from allowing their child to receive medical care for gender transition.
To be clear, gender-affirmative care, including hormone replacement therapy, has been deemed a medically necessary, safe and evidence-based treatment by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.