The so-called “Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act” introduced by Senator Shay Shelnutt, would prohibit healthcare professionals from providing lifesaving, gender-affirming medical care to trans youth through “criminal penalties for violations.”

It’d also make it a crime for schools to be safe spaces by requiring them to disclose private details to their parents – if a school knows a student is trans, the bill would require the school to violate the child’s safety by outing them to their parents, and putting them in potentially dangerous conditions.

The bill disregards trans youth’s right to autonomy by claiming the state has the authority to police them, by implying that being trans is a “public health risk.”

It wrongly claims that there are no studies on trans people receiving hormones and spreads disinformation to invalidate gender nonconforming and trans folks by dismissing lived experiences in the name of ‘science’ that is grossly misinformed and harmful.

It medicalizes transness by using the term “gender incongurence”; doesn’t use the word “transgender” even once; and refers to being trans as a “condition” that one needs to “recover” from, echoing the harmful practice of conversion therapy.

Trans children know who they are, they don’t need validation from patriarchal lawmakers or psychologists practicing the medicalization of gender identity.

More than half of trans children were at risk of suicide this past year, and access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in transgender and nonbinary youth, Trevor Project found.

Accessing healthcare that gives you the means to be who you are, is lifesaving. It is not a “human medical experimentation” as the bill tries to claim.

The hypocrisy of this bill is highlighted in how it protects the harmful practice of nonconsensual surgeries on intersex minors, while simultaneously stripping trans youth’s right to self-determination, and criminalizing adults and healthcare professionals who support them.

The bill was introduced on Jan 11th 2022, and has been referred to the Senate committee on Healthcare.

Trans folks have repeatedly emphasized how critically lifesaving gender-affirming care is: https://bit.ly/33K8DK9