Governor Jerry Brown has signed into California law Assembly Bill 2119, which will allow foster children access to hormonal treatments and gender surgery if they “self-identify” as transgender. The practical outcome of the law is that girls as young as 13 who do not have at least one their biological parents as their guardians will be able to demand mastectomies and boys as young as 13 are now able to on their own authority be castrated if they are not living with or supervised by at least one biological parent. As foster children are considered indigents and wards of the state, the medical procedures will be paid for by tax dollars.
AB 2119’s passage was hailed as a potentially lifesaving development by many advocates of transgender liberation.
The bill was passed by the Senate 26-to-12 with two abstentions and in the Assembly 53-to-22. It guarantees that children in California’s foster system have access to sex change operations or sterilizing drugs, sometimes referred to as puberty blockers, if the child certifies that he or she has been trapped in the wrong body. Only a child’s biological parent would be authorized to countermand a 13-to-17-year-old’s request for the treatment. Foster parents would not have such authority.
“The right of minors and nonminors in foster care to health care and mental health care … includes covered gender affirming health care and gender affirming mental health care,” reads AB 2119. “This right is subject to existing laws governing consent to health care for minors and nonminors and does not limit, add, or otherwise affect applicable laws governing consent to health care.”
AB 2119 was introduced in February by Democratic Assemblyman Todd Gloria, with the backing of multiple lesbian-gay-bisexual and transgender advocacy groups. Advocates for the law maintain that it is needed because of the existence of gender dysphoria, often referred to as transgenderism, in which girls or women identify as boys or men or boys or men identify as girls or women.
Gloria, who is among the first openly homosexual members of the California Assembly, said, “The passage of AB 2119 is a momentous sign of hope for transgender foster youth living in the system growing up feeling neglected, forgotten, or out of place. With this bill, I hope those foster youth will be assured that we see you. We care about you, and there is a place for you in California. AB 2119 will empower transgender foster youth to live authentically and simply be themselves.”
Others were lavish in their praise of the law.
“This gives LGBTQ foster youth room to focus on other important aspects of their lives, including succeeding in school, building healthy relationships, and fully engaging in positive youth development programs,” Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur said, adding that AB 2119 will “save lives.”
The National Center for Lesbian Rights was equally positive in its assessment. “Every young person in foster care deserves, and is entitled to, medically necessary health and behavioral health care,” Shannan Wilber, National Center for Lesbian Rights’ youth policy director, said. “The harms caused by the denial or delay of medically necessary care are particularly acute for transgender and gender non-conforming children and youth, who often encounter barriers to receiving the care they need to ensure their health, safety, and well-being.”
There were others that were having none of that, however. Many said it was utterly unbelievable that adolescents who have not yet reached the age of majority and who lack maturity as well as the sophistication or full understanding of such action are now able commit to an irreversible procedure that will impact their lives forever after.
Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist whose discipline involves the workings of glands and the metabolic implication of hormones, testified against the bill in June.
“A licensed professional or other individual should not subject a foster child to any treatment, intervention or conduct that seeks to change the foster child’s identity,” Laidlaw stated.
Laidlaw said there were severe risks attending gender transition, such as women seeking to exhibit the characteristics of men having to be administered as much as 80 times the normal amount of testosterone than normally occurs in a human body.
“Look at the science carefully. Get other medical opinions before passing this bill,. You can save the health and lives of many foster kids, by doing so,” he said.
The American College of Pediatricians went on record in opposition to AB 2119, selecting Dr. Andre Van Mol, M.D. to make the case against permitting children to select a surgical solution to their perception of dysphoria.
Referencing a sheaf of scientific literature, Van Mol said, “Transgender belief in childhood carries an overwhelming probability of desistance. Underlying issues need addressing; foster children are more likely to have them. The short and long-term risks of transitioning are sobering. This entails a lack of proven safety or benefit for minors. It is not pro-science; it’s no science. Regret and de-transitioning are not rare, and what’s gone is gone. A child or teen has a developing brain; adult decisions are beyond them. There is an overwhelming probability of desistance. 80-to-95 percent of minors with gender dysphoria/transgender identification will desist by adulthood. Professional literature consistently reports that gender dysphoria in children is far more likely to resolve than persist. This bill facilitates children being railroaded into dangerous protocols lacking proven long-term records of safety and efficacy for a condition that usually desists.”
–Mark Gutglueck