The so-called “Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act” sponsored by 25 Republican representatives, attempts to systemically ban lifesaving healthcare for trans youth in Ohio by recklessly spreading disinformation, claiming that gender-affirming care increases the risk of suicide and health complications.

Facts show, the opposite is true.

Trans folks who have access to gender-affirming hormone therapy in their teens have better mental health than those who wait until adulthood or don’t have access to treatment they need.

“Odds of severe psychological distress were reduced by 222%, 153% and 81% for those who began hormones in early adolescence, late adolescence and adulthood, respectively. Odds of previous-year suicidal ideation were 135% lower in people who began hormones in early adolescence, 62% lower in those who began in late adolescence and 21% lower in those who began as adults,” according to research based on a survey of 27,000 people, led by Stanford.

Gender-affirming care is linked to long-term mental health benefits: a study of 2,500 trans folks found that over a 10-year period, odds of getting mental health treatment decreased by 8 percent for every year since receiving gender-affirming surgery, according to the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in transgender and nonbinary youth, according to the Trevor Project.

Are the bill sponsors of these copy-paste attacks not obligated to give citations for their claims to the public?

The “SAFE” act attempts to erase trans identities by conflating transness with mental distress, to dismiss the barriers – like this act itself – that are making it impossible for trans people to be who they are. It treats gender dysphoria as a ‘diagnosis’: a medicalized erasure that labels being trans as a mental illness.

The medical community need to unlearn the practice of imposing misplaced diagnoses on identities. Trans people are not sick for being who they are. It’s the cis-het patriarchal gaze that needs to recover from its internalized wounds around gender, and to stop projecting its hurt on trans youth.

HB 454 was carried over from last year.