The physicians of the Massachusetts Medical Society are deeply troubled and angered by the Texas government’s misguided and discriminatory attacks on the health of transgender children and associated threats against families who love and support their children.
Interfering with patients’ and families’ rights to seek medically appropriate gender-affirming health care and obstructing the trusted and sacred relationship between patient and physician is dangerous and can have dire consequences relative to the mental and physical wellbeing of transgender and questioning children.
Transgender individuals are already at a markedly higher risk of suffering from mental health disorders, and to mandate actions that characterize the pursuit of safe and appropriate health care as abuse increases stigma, discrimination, and stress. Forbidding hormone-blocking treatments that delay puberty and allow time for a gender-fluid adolescent to establish their gender identity can cause lifelong irreparable harm to that teenager by forcing body changes they abhor. The governor’s directive is reprehensible and represents a frightening and avoidable teardown of progress and advocacy efforts to improve health equity for all patients.
The Massachusetts Medical Society strongly supports the rights of individuals to health, happiness, and liberty regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or nationality, and urges all governments to recognize these rights.
-Carole E. Allen, MD, MBA, FAAP, President, Massachusetts Medical Society
