Sobbing trans Missourians post videos about 'forced de-transitions'
‘Since when was America fair?’ Trans Missourians post heart-wrenching videos about ‘forced de-transitions’ and try to evade the state’s ban on sex-change drugs
- Young trans people say they’re ‘scared’ about hormones being banned
- The attorney general says the ‘experimental’ drugs will be cut off on Thursday
- Some are trying to skirt the ban, others are planning to leave the state
- Read about the growing numbers of Americans who regret trans procedures
Transgender Missourians are posting heart-wrenching videos on social media about being forced to ‘de-transition’ once their sex-reassignment drugs are banned, under new rules set to come into force this week.
Others are trading tips online about stockpiling the cross-sex hormones they need, or finding a telehealth doctor to help them once Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s tight new emergency restrictions come into force on Thursday.
Bailey’s first-of-its-kind rule, introduced over fears of young people getting irreversible treatments in Missouri, impose numerous restrictions on both adults and children before they can receive puberty-blocking drugs, hormones, or surgeries.
In one widely-shared TikTok video, Milo Paasch, a high school senior from Springfield, Missouri, said the new rules would likely cut off his access to testosterone, which deepens his voice and gives him other male characteristics.
‘I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Testosterone has been life-saving for me,’ Paasch, who was born female, says in the clip.
‘It’s not fair, but since when was America fair?’ said Milo Paasch, a high school senior from Springfield, Missouri
Alejandra Caraballo, a prominent male-to-female transitioner and Harvard Law School instructor, said she was ‘stockpiling’ her estrogen supplies in case they are banned or her health insurance stops covering them
‘Taking me off testosterone now is taking away my happiness and my healthcare.’
Paasch says his cross-sex hormones could be cut off because he was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, and Bailey’s tough new rules restrict transgender medicine for adults with mental health issues.
Leaving Missouri is not an option either, added Paasch, whose identity cannot be verified. He has a scholarship to study at Kansas City Art Institute and says: ‘I don’t want to have to give up my dream just to get out of this hellhole.’
‘It’s not fair, but since when was America fair?’
Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri on Monday challenged the rule in court before it takes effect on April 27 – but that’s done little to ease the worries of many trans Missourians.
Robert Fischer, spokesman for the state’s biggest LGBTQ group, Promo Missouri, said his colleagues were in contact with trans residents who were ‘extremely upset that their care is being attacked.’
‘We’ve heard from a variety of individuals and parents of trans children who are deciding whether or not they need to leave the state, and having to have step-by-step action plans, should this rule move forward,’ Fischer told DailyMail.com.
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Plume, a telehealth provider of gender-affirming care, as it is known, has launched an ’emergency response’ to the Missouri rule, saying it is ‘offering rapid-response care to as many trans and nonbinary people as possible at no cost.’
Dr Izzy Lowell, owner of Queermed, another telehealth provider, said Missourians would be able to cross state lines into a territory where trans care was not banned, and get a prescription for hormones from a parking lot near the border.
Still, Dr Lowell added, those without cars or living in Missouri’s interior could well struggle.
‘It’s going to be devastating,’ Dr Lowell told DailyMail.com.
‘Patients are already panicking. It’s well known that hormone therapy decreases suicide rates by half among transgender teens, who have very high rates of suicide. So I would expect that to go up.’
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, speaking at the microphone, says hormone treatments and puberty blockers are ‘experimental’
People applaud during a rally in favor of banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors, at the Missouri Statehouse in Jefferson City
The Missouri ruling has sent shockwaves across the country, where Republican politicians in many conservative states have sought to restrict trans care for youths.
It has been banned for children in more than a dozen states this year, but many moves face legal challenges.
Alejandra Caraballo, a prominent male-to-female transitioner and Harvard Law School instructor, said she was ‘stockpiling’ her estrogen supplies in case they are banned or her health insurance stops covering them in the coming year.
‘This is where the trans community is at in 2023,’ she tweeted.
Under Missouri’s new rules, gender-affirming medical treatments can only be provided by physicians to people who have experienced an ‘intense pattern’ of documented gender dysphoria for three years.
They also have to receive at least 15 hourly sessions with a therapist over at least 18 months.
Patients also would first have to be screened for autism and ‘social media addiction,’ and any psychiatric symptoms from mental health issues would have to be treated and resolved.
Bailey announced the rule after Jamie Reed, a former employee of a trans youth clinic in St. Louis run by Washington University, revealed how doctors and therapists were rushing children into trans drugs and procedures.
In a bombshell whistleblower testimony, Reed revealed how the clinic administered a litany of irreparable treatments to minors, often without parental consent, or after bullying parents into consenting by saying their children would kill themselves.
Julia Williams holds a sign in counterprotest during a rally in favor of a ban on gender-affirming health care legislation, at the Missouri Statehouse in Jefferson City
An online campaigner who goes by the name Dominick urges ‘cis allies,’ meaning straight people, to help out trans people who have their meds cut off in Republican states
The Missouri ACLU and Lambda Legal argue that Bailey, a Republican, has no authority to use a state consumer-protection law to regulate gender-affirming care through emergency rule-making.
The rule is ‘a baseless and discriminatory attempt to limit the healthcare options for transgender individuals,’ said Dr. Samuel Tochtrop of plaintiff Southampton Community Healthcare, one of the plaintiffs, in a statement.
Gender-affirming care, as it is known, covers everything from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones and, in rare cases for trans children under 18, surgery.
The FDA approved puberty blockers 30 years ago to treat children with precocious puberty — a condition that causes sexual development to begin much earlier than usual. Sex hormones — synthetic forms of estrogen and testosterone — were approved decades ago to treat hormone disorders or as birth control pills.
But the FDA has not approved those medications specifically to treat trans identifying youth. They have instead been used for many years for that purpose ‘off label,’ a common and accepted practice for many medical conditions.
Supporters of gender-affirming care say it is life-saving for a suicide prone group.
Opponents of trans ideology say sex is determined at birth and cannot be changed, that medical groups have been hijacked by trans activists and that politicians must step in and stop parents, doctors, or therapists from permanently harming children.
Many are alarmed by the sharp uptick in teenage girls with autism and other mental health woes seeking gender-change drugs in recent years, and of new studies linking puberty blockers to weaker bones and osteoporosis.
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