The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors.
One Saturday morning in September 2022, Terrence Steyer, the dean of the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, placed an urgent call to a student. Just a year prior, the medical student, Thomas Agostini, had won first place at a university-sponsored event for his graduate research on transgender pediatric patients. He also had been featured in a video on MUSC’s website highlighting resources that support the LGBTQ+ community.
Now, Agostini and his once-lauded study had set off a political firestorm. Conservative activists seized on one line in particular in the study’s summary — a parenthetical noting the youngest transgender patient to visit MUSC’s pediatric endocrinology clinic was 4 years old — and inaccurately claimed that children that young were prescribed hormones as part of a gender transition. Elon Musk amplified the false claim, tweeting, “Is it really true that four-year-olds are receiving hormone treatment?” That led federal and state lawmakers to frantically ask top MUSC leaders whether the public hospital was in fact helping young children medically transition. The hospital was not; its pediatric transgender patients did not receive hormone therapy before puberty, nor does it offer surgical options to minors.
Yes, I have, and I continue to urge people to wear masks, get vaccinated, I get my dogs vaccinated; I urge people to vote, I believe systemic racism exists, etc. Despite the narrative that people try to push that all those opposed to medically transitioning children are right-wing conservatives, I am not. I am also a trained scientist with a PhD from a public Ivy university. I do not think that the current zeitgeist surrounding this issue has been resolved through rigorous science and the best attempts to do no harm: to everyone.
The problem is that in order to prevent the incredibly rare occurrence of a cisgender person mistakenly undergoing transition, you are advocating for policies that would force a far greater number of transgender people to undergo that same horror.
There is harm being done to the entire class of women for the loss of the concept of sex as the source of female oppression. Sex matters and these distinctions are being removed in language.
sigh I don’t know why I bother speaking with TERFs.
Firstly, that has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote or the chain of comments thus far. It’s just a completely non-sequitur accusation.
But secondly, this isn’t happening.
An intersectional understanding of oppression and privilege does not erase the oppression cisgender women face.
And the distinctions in language are absolutely not being removed. The words “transgender” and “cisgender” exist precisely to make discussing these issues in a clear and respectful manner possible. That’s exactly what those words are for.
I agree with you.
Thank you. Today I decided I didn’t just want to silence my opinion and contribute to an echo chamber. (Tomorrow I will probably go back to upvoting cat memes.)