My latest, in the @washingtonpost. About the outrageous cruelty of this new wave of anti-trans legislation at the state level. The sheer malevolence of it.

What would it look like if we actually saw trans kids as people and tried to help them become their true selves? https://twitter.com/PostOpinions/status/1381691122825760768

This was a really hard piece to write, in part because I wanted to be careful and not accidentally make an already-horrifying situation worse. Writing for a high-profile platform is a huge responsibility. Also, I wanted to make sure I really got across why this is so messed up.

As with most articles, there was a LOT that I didn't get to include in this 800-word piece. I had an amazing conversation with @RaquelWillis_ in which she spoke passionately about how "we all deserve bodily autonomy and the right to self-determination."

Raquel also said this gender surveillance hurts cis people too. Cis men and boys aren't allowed to show "emotionality and intimacy". Cis women and girls don't get to be considered "strong, capable leaders." It hurts EVERYONE.

And Raquel made the point that these laws will inevitably hurt BIPOC students most of all—because subjective laws are *always* used as a weapon against Black and Brown people. And some of the earliest records of trans/GNC people are arrest records.

Finally, Raquel also told me that trans people are at the center of the fight for universal health care, the conversation around student debt, and many other fights that affect everybody.

(Honestly this article could have been ten times as long.)

Also @1demerith had so many amazing things to say that I wish had fit into the article. Including the point that these bills aim to "reinforce the idea that it an ideal state to be cis and that any deviation from the norm is inherently bad."

All of the discussions about whether it's okay to allow young people to transition and to have puberty blockers and other treatments is from the POV of cis people and their fears and anxieties, Meredith pointed out to me.

This legislation "harkens back to the old crossdressing laws in the 1950s," Meredith added.

She also talked to me about growing up in the Philippines, "a culture that has a long-entrenched positive third-gender tradition that colonials tried to eradicate."

So she didn't have this "automatic sense that cis is better" that people take for granted here in the USA. She was shocked to encounter that presumption.

I also talked to @chasestrangio and I'm so sorry the quotes didn't make it into the final piece. Chase very generously gave me a run-down of just how horrendous the latest NC bill is, and how it tries to enshrine in law a repressive definition of biological sex.

"The end game is to keep attacking the autonomy of trans people," he told me. The thing where the NC law tries to define "minor" as under 21 is out of step with medical decision-making, and a scary bizarre precedent.

In the UK, they pointed out to me, anti-trans activists started out insisting that nobody should transition before the age of 16. They slowly ratcheted it up until they were saying it should be the age of 25. That's what we're starting to see here, as well.

These bills are "ultimately about punishing anyone who departs from sex stereotypes," Strangio told me. And he agreed with Raquel Willis that these laws will mostly be turned into a weapon against Black and Brown people, especially the sports bans.

Black and Brown people will be policed based on how well they conform to White ideals of masculinity and femininity, he said. "If you look at the history of policing athletes," he said, "it's predominantly Black and Brown athletes."

And finally, I also talked to @jack_turban who I really wish there had been space to quote in the piece — but that conversation was invaluable in helping me to understand the ramifications of this legislation, so it was still immensely valuable.

Dr. Turban told me that medical professionals "have long moved past the idea that gender diversity is a pathology."

When you affirm trans people, they thrive.

When you try to "fix" them, you have bad mental health outcomes, including psychological distress and suicide.

Trans kids, their parents, and their doctors will all tell you this themselves, but their voices are not being centered in this conversation, Dr. Turban said.

We should be hearing from "all the trans kids and adults all around the country who are thriving."

Also—and this is such an important point—the text of the NC bill keeps leaning on the idea that puberty blockers are an "untested" treatment. Which is a term that could mean anything.

They have gone through clinical trials and the FDA have determined they are safe for kids.

The use of puberty blockers for trans kids is "off label," Dr. Turban said, but this is not at all uncommon.

There have been five studies so far of their use for trans kids, including one last year which found they lower the odds of considering suicide.

"Meanwhile, clinicians are seeing patients who have extreme distress from their gender dysphoria, for whom access to these medications could be life-saving," Dr. Turban said.

Let doctors make treatment plans for their patients without looking over their shoulder.

"Transgender youth often have extreme negative reactions to puberty, as their bodies start to develop in ways that don't match who they know themselves to be," Dr. Turban said.

He pointed me to this case study in which blockers made a huge difference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9879847/ 

So yeah, this article could have been WAY longer. When I get my newsletter restarted, I may make all of the stuff I just tweeted into my first edition.

The point I really really want to stress: we should be celebrating trans kids, and providing them with a nurturing environment.

When I was a teen, I could not have even imagined living in a world where so many people my age were revealing their full beautiful selves to the world. It's a blessing, and we should rejoice instead of trying to tear people down.

Like the man said:

These children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
They're immune to your consultations
They're quite aware what they're going through