Transgender Legislation In the United States

KEVIN HARRIS: Several states are introducing legislation apparently in response to the rise in transgender activism. For example, Nebraska senator Kathleen Kauth introduced LB-574 which would ban gender-altering drugs and surgeries for those under 19 years of age. LB-575 limits school sports and bathrooms by a person’s biological sex at birth. A Texas bill would prevent administering or supplying a puberty-suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignments. There is yet another one. It is happening in states all over. Oklahoma, a bill that would prevent healthcare professionals from providing this kind of medical procedure would ban that on anyone under the age of 26. A lot of people are upset about that and showed up at the state capitol. This is senate bill 129. Doctors could be stripped of their medical license if they perform gender reassignment surgeries or prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormone therapies for someone age 25 or younger. Lawmakers are urging that performing these procedures on minors would drastically alter the lives and bodies of persons too young to make such a decision. That seems to be the main issue. Many people are terribly regretful for having undergone these sex-changing procedures when they were too young to make such a drastic decision, and they blame activists for pushing it on them.

DR. CRAIG: There are two separate issues here. Let's get one of them out of the way right at the start, and that would be the bill to limit school sports and bathrooms by a person's biological sex at birth. This has to do with transgender athletes having an unfair advantage by having biological males competing in women's sports activities. It seems to me that there's a very simple solution to this. People distinguish between biological sex and gender. So transgender activists want to say that even though you may be biologically male, you can adopt a gender identity of being female. It seems to me that given the unfairness of these transgender athletes competing against biological females that what one could do is to simply re-label the sports. Rather than boys and girls, you have male sports and female sports where male and female are defined biologically. I would see nothing wrong with making such a distinction. We have the male sports for those who are biologically male; we have female sports for those who are biologically female. Gender just becomes irrelevant. You can compete whatever your gender, but you will be segregated into these different sports groups based upon your biological sex. It seems to me that that is obviously the fair thing to do because biological males have greater musculature, larger mass, greater strength than do female athletes. So it's manifestly unfair to the female athletes to have to compete against male athletes. I would suggest just separating them based upon their biological sex.

KEVIN HARRIS:

One person who spoke in support of the [Nebraska bill to ban these kinds of procedures on kids] said they regret the care they received as a teen, and testified their parents were coerced into the surgery.

“They were told, ‘Would you rather have a dead daughter, or a living son?’ These are not the words of a medical professional, but the words of an activist. I was just a teenager who needed actual help, not surgery.”^[1]

That brings up an important issue. As I looked at these news reports, people who are opposed to these bills are claiming that these laws will result in many suicides. In other words, conservative and morality-based views cause suicide. Well, kids committing suicide tends to be a conversation-stopper.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. This brings us to the second issue. Having set to the side the issue of transgender sports competition, what we have here are attempts to have legislation aimed at protecting minors against life-changing procedures before they are of such an age to appreciate the consequences of these actions fully. Notice that this is not making a moral judgment about transgenderism of any sort. These are simply laws aimed at the protection of minors. These kinds of laws are very familiar to all of us. For example, states have laws concerning drinking age in those states. It is illegal to sell alcohol to minors. This is done for the protection of minors against these substances. Or, again, it's illegal to sell cigarettes to minors. So when you buy cigarettes or you buy alcohol at the grocery store or the liquor shop, you need to be ID'd because these laws are aimed to protect these minors against these kinds of disastrous consequences. I think it hardly needs to be said that the decision to have transgender surgery or sex change hormones is far more consequential than buying a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes. Therefore, if these other laws are just in protecting minors against certain activities or behavior, certainly I think this one would be just as well. As for the kind of trump card of suicide – really what this calls for is counseling for these troubled young people. They need help. They need counseling. That's what they ought to be provided with. In fact, this claim about danger of suicide actually admits that what we're dealing with here is mental illness. These young people are suffering from gender dysphoria. They have a mental illness where they, though biologically male, think that they're female or female they think that they're male. Then the results of depression and anxiety disorder are just further manifestations of mental illness. So these folks need help and not just simplistic solutions like hormones and surgery whose consequences can be virtually irreversible.

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, you gave me the heads up on the Oklahoma bill. The initial legislation was 26 years old. Why was it 26?

DR. CRAIG: I saw an interview with an Oklahoma lawmaker and he said, quite correctly in fact, that the human brain doesn't come to maturity until 25 years of age. This is a sobering thought for our young 20-somethings, but it's true that the brain is continuing to mature and develop right up until the age of 25. That was why they picked that age as the cutoff point to have a less arbitrary cutoff point as to when a person ought to be able to opt for this sort of gender-altering surgery.

KEVIN HARRIS: It really explains a lot of the dumb things I did when I was 21 and 22 and 23 and 24. You've always taught us to watch out for how language is used as mere rhetoric. For example, I've got a stack of articles on this and they're all putting this guilt trip on lawmakers and people who are supporting preventing this kind of surgery on kids. Many major news outlets report that this legislation attacks “gender-affirming care.” I bet that's in every article that I read, especially from the more liberal . . . gender-affirming care. That the children are being targeted and being denied gender-affirming care. It's difficult to see how these medical mutilations have anything to do with care or affirming.

DR. CRAIG: I agree. One of the things that we've learned from abortion debates is the power of slogans and the use of euphemisms like “women's reproductive health care” to describe the destruction of an innocent human life. Here we have the same thing. When I saw the expression gender-affirming care, I had first thought this means you affirm the gender that the person was born with. But no, it's really gender-denying care. It's providing surgeries or hormone treatments to help them change their gender, not to affirm the gender that they have. Again the language of targeting is so inappropriate. Legislation that sets a minimum drinking age for the sale of alcohol to minors or sale of cigarettes to minors isn't targeting minors! It's trying to protect them against these dangerous behaviors. In exactly the same way these legislators are passing legislation aimed at the protection of minors against life-altering surgeries or hormonal treatments.

KEVIN HARRIS: Frank C. Worrell, PhD, president of the American Psychological Association, condemned the Texas legislation saying, “This ill-conceived directive from the Texas governor will put at-risk children at even higher risk of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide. Gender-affirming care promotes the health and well-being of transgender youth and is provided by medical and mental health professionals, based on well-established scientific research.”^[2] It should be pointed out that many medical professionals disagree with that – that he just said. They say that this “gender-affirming” care can cause great harm and great regret later in life. But many people want to give the APA the last word.

DR. CRAIG: I think this is very political. I don't know of any evidence that someone like Worrell would give that this legislation would produce greater degrees of self-harm or suicide than transgender youth who get these surgeries and hormone treatments might go through. As I say, these types of mental states are symptomatic of a mental health problem, and we need to be treating them in that sense – psychologically – rather than treating it as though this were a medical problem.

KEVIN HARRIS: At a Nebraska rally at the state capitol, members of the clergy urged conservatives and people of faith not to use the Bible in support of banning these sex change procedures. For example, the Reverend Debra McKnight said,

“I think that people interpret the Bible in a diversity of ways. And I think that that’s a cultural desire on their part more than it is biblical scholarship” . . .

“If you look in the time and place, you have to understand the culture and the context deeply, like there’s Joseph and his dream coat, right. We translated it even as a ‘Technicolor Dreamcoat.’ But really, it’s the same word as princess dress. We just don’t translate it that way because people have made choices about how to translate it.”^[3]

They're saying that Joseph wore women's clothing.

DR. CRAIG: When this Debra McKnight mouths slogans about biblical scholarship, this is biblical balderdash. This is just utter nonsense. She even uses a Broadway play “Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat” to try to suggest that this is the way biblical scholars would translate these words. That's absolute nonsense. In a patriarchal culture like ancient Israel, Joseph wouldn't be caught dead wearing women's clothing! I want to say that I do agree with her about one thing, and that is that we should not use the Bible in support of banning these procedures under certain ages because it has nothing to do with the ethics of it. It's very similar to laws that are passed regulating activities for minors that are underage, and there are all sorts of laws like that of which I've named a couple of examples aimed at protecting minors who are not in a position to make these kinds of decisions in a mature and fully informed way. You don't need to appeal to the Bible in this any more than you need to appeal to the Bible to support a law saying that cigarettes shouldn't be sold to minors.

KEVIN HARRIS: One more thing. Several states – Texas, North Dakota, Florida for starters – have proposed legislation to limit drag queen shows for children. There are drag shows for young children at schools and reading events for children at libraries where drag queens will come in and read them stories. Because of the sexual nature of most drag shows, lawmakers want to keep them away from young children and relegate them to adults-only venues. Are we just too old-fashioned, Bill? Do we need to get with the times here?

DR. CRAIG: You know, I believe that part of being a Christian disciple is to go against culture and against the times in which you live when necessary. We are disciples of Jesus, and Jesus would not have sanctioned things like these prurient sexual displays like these drag shows. It is offensive to think that these should be exhibited in grade schools before children. Christians need to be bold and faithful in their discipleship and not be afraid to go against the contemporary currents. When I was in college in the late 60s, being counter-cultural meant opposing the war in Vietnam, standing for certain other anti-establishment values. What's happened in our culture now is that the establishment has become progressive and is pushing these deeply anti-Christian values. Now being counter-cultural means standing up to the establishment in the support of traditional Christian values. That's something we should do unashamedly and vigorously.

KEVIN HARRIS: As we conclude today, I'm thinking about our response as followers of Christ to all of this. We not only have people who struggle in the areas of gender identity to care for, but we have aggressive activists to contend with. Quite frankly, they're responsible for a lot of this. It's activism.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, and I think we need to oppose these activists politically and at the ballot box. We need to stand up to them. Take a stand and not be afraid. But at the same time, I appreciate your reminder that those who are struggling with gender dysphoria really do need help, and we need to provide that kind of counseling that would be compassionate and understanding and helping them to come to grips with the problem they face.^[4]