Thread by @jessdkant

There's a lot to say about South Dakota, but mostly that my heart breaks for trans kids throughout the state, who now join Utah in having had their healthcare brutally and pointlessly ripped away by theocrats. To them: please know we will continue to fight for you. We love you.

As to my knowledge, SD has made the audio but not yet made a transcript available: here is a link to an AI-generated transcription that I'm cleaning up now. otter.ai/u/wHSfvFnyGBE1…. The audio will play along with the transcript.
#ProtectTransKids

A handful of observations:

At one point, Novstrup claims children "as young as 8 are struggling down the path of medical transition". This is patently false. We call them "puberty blockers" for a reason. 8 year olds in GnRHa studies are experiencing harmful precocious puberty.

He references "that swedish study" several times but is careful not to name what I can only assume is the Karolinska Institute. He likely doesn't name it because the KI researchers themselves have been debunking misinformation just like this that use their studies as cover.

He names one primary source explicitly the entire time. What is it? Well, drugs.com, of course. I would like to humbly suggest that if the extent of your medical academic prowess is the first hit on a lazy Google search, you're not fit to legislate this issue.

Senator Nesiba attempted to propose an amendment that would ask dept social services to create a plan to offer emergency mental health counseling to kids losing their care. The motion failed because, they claimed, it was "unfunded" and would therefore impose a burden on DSS.

While I'm most furious because its disingenuous to claim HB 1080 itself won't absolutely deluge DSS itself to breaking, and could be at least tempered by having some vestige of a plan. But I want to clarify something for Nesiba: no, psychotherapy is not a substitute for blockade.

They use the 80% desistance statistic over and over and over. Again, they don't say when that study was done because no study using contemporary dysphoria criteria has found these results. Those studies were based off of samples largely made up of cis kids deemed "nonconforming."

There's something to be said for having at least a rudimentary understanding of epidemiology and mental health before trying to interpret correlations related to suicidal ideation. The most salient of which is that you also need to examine covariates like social environment.

We do not, and never have in the modern era, conceptualized suicide as a phenomenon that exists unto itself. It is a combination of thousands of factors, but overwhelmingly the research supports that hopelessness is the single biggest risk factor for anyone who experiences it.

You do not need scientific training, however, to understand why trans kids are feeling hopeless right now. To everyone but the 4 who voted nay: you are the reason. You did that. You and your party have been creating an environment for trans people that is at best openly hostile.

Your counterparts around the western world have been working dilligently to dismantle everything that made it possible for gender diverse youth to bravely come out. You are pulling the social rug out from under them. It seems to be the thing you do most often and, sadly, best.

But it is also important to understand that suicidal ideation, among the entire population rises in adolescence dramatically. Teenagers are one of the highest risk categories as an age cohort. This rises the more levels of marginalization or ostracization someone experiences.

Pubertal blockade typically starts just before this reaches an apex, in high school, which I think queer adults around the western world will also resoundingly agree were some of the worst years of our lives. That's why you see the same phenomenon among cisgender LGBQ youth.

That being said, despite testimony delivered by yesterday before the vote, there is *NO* compelling evidence that blockers cause worsening mental health. It doesn't exist. You know what does? Evidence to the contrary. In droves, actually. That's why the APAs and AMA back them.