Thread by @benryanwriter

Nebraska has issued a new, quite intense set of regulations for kids with gender dysphoria. To access gender-transition medication, they must receive 40 hours of therapy that is "clinically neutral and not in a gender-affirming or conversion context." 🧵⬇️
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Nebraska's new regulations for gender dysphoric youth seeking puberty blockers require that clinicians document that the child's distress is driven by the dysphoria and not by other mental or physical health conditions, and that the dysphoria is unlikely to naturally resolve. 2/

The gender dysphoric child in Nebraska (defined as under 19 years old) must live in the preferred gender for six straight months before qualifying for puberty blockers. 3/ web.archive.org/web/2023100123…

To access puberty blockers, Nebraska kids must be informed of risks: "long-term effects on bone density, brain development, impact on fertility, sexual side effects including, but not limited to, loss of sexual gratification, and effects upon physical growth and development." 4/

To provide cross-sex hormones to children in Nebraska, providers must document that the use of puberty blockers, if prescribed, "has been successful at reducing patient distress and discomfort". 5/ web.archive.org/web/2023100123…

Nebraska children seeking cross-sex hormones must be informed of risks, including: "long-term effects on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems, metabolic disorders, increased risk of cancer, bone density, brain development, impact on fertility, sexual side effects." 6/

Nebraska children seeking cross-sex hormones must be informed of potential sexual side effects, "including, but not limited to, loss of sexual gratification, and effects upon physical growth and development." 7/

Trans legislative analyst Erin Reed @ErinInTheMorn denounces the Nebraska regulations. And the fact that the regulations explicitly state that the required therapy should not be conversion therapy notwithstanding, she asserts that it will be just that. 8/ erininthemorning.com/p/nebraska-to-…

@ErinInTheMorn has previously denounced a new model of psychological counseling for gender dysphoric youth, "gender-exploratory therapy" as conversion therapy. 9/ erininthemorning.com/p/gender-explo…

Gender-exploratory therapy has been championed by Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and a past president of the trans health care group USPATH, and Laura Edwards-Leeper, the founding psychologist of the first pediatric trans clinic in the U.S. 10/ washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/1…

I spoke with Edwards-Leeper this week and she told me: "Conflating conversion therapy and identity exploration is perhaps the largest threat to both gender distressed cisgender youth and transgender youth, alike. The rhetoric being used to conflate the two must stop immediately."

Florence Ashley, of the Faculty of Law at the Univ of Alberta, is among the trans advocates who have denounced as apparent conversion therapy various counseling modalities for gender dysphoric kids that don’t follow the affirmative model. @ButNotTheCity
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Trans activist and clinical instructor at the Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic, Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) has denounced gender-exploratory therapy as "conversion therapy, full stop." x.com/Esqueer_/statu…