Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Disinformation underlies bans on care for transgender adolescents

Close-up of hands holdering vials of medicine

A Mississippi transgender teen holds a supply of testosterone medication.

Rory Doyle for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Sheridan is a member of the board of Lawyers Defending American Democracy. He previously served as president of the Rhode Island Bar Association.

In the past three years, 23 states have passed legislation that prohibits physicians and other health care providers from providing gender affirming health care to transgender minors. These laws constitute an extreme, unprecedented attack on transgender adolescents, their families and the medical providers who care for them.


Criminalizing accepted medical treatments irresponsibly interferes with the patient-physician relationship and will eliminate the rights of parents to support their transgender children. Worse, prohibiting necessary health care for transgender teens will result in needless suffering and, possibly, suicide. Finally, the National Institutes of Health has noted that these laws are premised on false, unfounded medical claims and assumptions that have been vigorously opposed by virtually every major medical organization in the country, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

These cruel laws are grounded in disinformation and bias. They are built on falsehoods that ignore research and facts, and only bring harm to an already vulnerable community.

Gender dysphoria is not, as some legislators contend, a contemporary fad and should not be casually dismissed. Rather, it is a clinical condition marked by distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s gender assigned at birth, or the gender society perceives them to be. This incongruence can lead to clinically significant distress and impair functioning in many aspects of a person’s life. If not properly treated, gender dysphoria can result in debilitating depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use, self-harm and suicide.

The widely accepted view of the medical community is that gender-affirming care is the appropriate treatment for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. Gender-affirming care is care that supports a child or adolescent as they explore their gender identity — in contrast with efforts to change the individual’s gender identity to match their sex assigned at birth. There are multiple, well-established, evidence based clinical protocols for the treatment of gender dysphoria.

Gender-affirming medical interventions for adolescents, including, for example, puberty blockers, are only recommended if numerous, specific clinical conditions are documented. Puberty blockers delay irreversible pubertal development until adolescents are old enough and have had sufficient time to make more informed decisions about whether to pursue further treatments. Contrary to the “legislative findings” in many of these state laws, puberty blockers are not “unproven,” “harmful” or “experimental.” Puberty blockers have been prescribed by pediatricians and endocrinologists for over 30 years to treat precocious or early onset of puberty. The efficacy, safety and side-effect profile of puberty blockers are well established. They are also, despite claims to the contrary, “fully reversible.”

Gender affirming surgical interventions are generally not recommended for transgender adolescents. A comprehensive, multiyear study confirmed that such interventions for transgender adolescents are rare.

Finally, many of the states that have enacted these bans have done so with an express finding that a “substantial” or “large” majority of children who experience distress identifying with their biological sex come to identify with their biological sex in adolescence or adulthood. This is simply not true. An NIH survey found that only 8 percent of transgender respondents reported they had temporarily or permanently detransitioned at some point and the majority did so temporarily.

The adverse consequences of these laws are clear, direct and deeply concerning. Decades of research has confirmed that transgender adolescents are at a heightened risk for anxiety, depression and suicide. A recent study conducted by the NIH found that 56 percent of transgender youth reported a previous suicide attempt and 86 percent reported suicidality. Numerous studies have also consistently demonstrated that gender-affirming interventions significantly reduce the incidence of depression and suicide for transgender and nonbinary youths. Despite this evidence, an estimated 38 percent of all transgender adolescents in America now live in states which restrict their access to medical care critical to their well-being.

A thriving democratic society requires leaders to openly debate and engage the public in discourse based on facts and science. We should seek to eliminate, not create, laws that marginalize or scapegoat selected members of society. And respect for individual autonomy in matters that involve deeply personal choices distinguishes a democracy from societies in which those with power determine how individuals and families should live.

Laws that deprive transgender adolescents, their parents and their medical providers of the freedom to make informed decisions with respect to safe, evidence based clinical care contravene these fundamental principles.

Read More

The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

As the COP 30 nears, Indigenous-led conservation offers the best hope to protect the Amazon rainforest and stabilize the global climate system.

Getty Images, photography by Ulrich Hollmann

The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane, and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It’s a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching.

The Amazon Rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to nearly twice the world’s yearly carbon emissions. With more than 2,500 tree species that account for roughly one-third of all tropical trees on earth, the Amazon stores the equivalent to 10–15 years of all global fossil fuel emissions. The "flying rivers" generated by the forest affect precipitation patterns in the United States, as well our food supply chains, and scientists are warning that in the face of accelerating climate change, deforestation, drought, and fire, the Amazon stands at a perilous tipping point.

Keep ReadingShow less
Indiana Republicans Could Lose at the Ballot over Redistricting Plan
Image generated by IVN staff

Indiana Republicans Could Lose at the Ballot over Redistricting Plan

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- As Indiana Republicans weigh whether to call a special session to redraw the state’s congressional map, a new Unite America poll shows that voters overwhelmingly oppose the idea — including a majority of GOP primary voters.

The survey, conducted October 7–9 by 3D Strategic Research, found that 44% of Hoosiers oppose mid-decade redistricting while only 31% support it. After hearing balanced arguments from both sides, opposition jumped to 69%, with just 21% still in favor.

Keep ReadingShow less
Draining the Safeguards

Donald Trump

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Draining the Safeguards

A loyalty-forward government has formed right before our eyes. Jared Kushner has been tapped to help lead the Israel–Hamas talks. He wasn’t chosen for his expertise in delicate diplomacy; he was chosen because he’s the president’s son-in-law—and because some around him seem to treat his Jewish identity as if that alone were a qualification aligned with a pro-Israel posture. Identity and proximity are not expertise. That’d be like putting Linda McMahon in charge of the Department of Education because she once (seemingly!) went to school. Oh wait, we did that too. What are we doing here?

Zoom out from the Kushner headline and the method snaps into focus. First, elevate friends, family, donors, and media allies into roles once filled by deeply vetted and experienced professionals. Second, lean on “acting” titles and novel personnel rules to dodge scrutiny and degrade accountability. Third, purge the referees—advisory boards, inspectors general, nonpartisan civil servants—so the only guardrail left is personal loyalty. It’s governing by who you know, not what you know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dwight Eisenhower
Without leaders like Dwight Eisenhower we will once again find ourselves on the precipice of a "world devoid of hope, freedom, economic stability, morals, values and human decency," writes M. Dane Waters.
Moore/Getty Images

The General's Warning: What Eisenhower Knew About Power

On September 28, 2025, President Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to American cities for domestic law enforcement, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorizing 200 Oregon National Guard members for a 60-day deployment to Portland. A federal judge temporarily blocked the move, calling the justification for military deployment "simply untethered to the facts." When the administration tried to circumvent the order by sending troops from other states, the judge expanded her ruling, blocking any federalized National Guard deployment to Oregon.

That declaration marks a break with the boundary Dwight Eisenhower insisted upon between national defense and domestic politics. His 1961 farewell address warned against exactly this misuse of power.

Keep ReadingShow less