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At midnight on Saturday, more than 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills died in West Virginia after the legislature adjourned sine die. Bills that did not pass included the misleadingly named “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which would have ended legal recognition for transgender people in the state, as well as a bill that would have prohibited gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. West Virginia is the second state in a week hinting that anti-transgender legislative attacks are encountering resistance. Last week, Florida’s legislature also adjourned, effectively killing dozens of anti-transgender bills.

One bill that failed to pass as the West Virginia legislature adjourned was House Bill 5243, also known as the misleadingly-named “Women’s Bill of Rights” by its proponents. The bill primarily aimed to exclude transgender individuals from all legal gender protections in the state. Riley Gaines, who heavily promoted the bill, joined Governor Jim Justice at a press conference where it was announced as a major policy priority. The proposed legislation would have led to bathroom restrictions, prohibitions on driver’s license and ID changes, and the elimination of legal recognition for transgender people’s gender identities. Despite frantic, last-minute efforts by some Republicans to pass it, Democratic lawmakers countered by proposing dozens of amendments for debate. As a result, Republicans placed it at the bottom of the calendar.

“HB 5243 offered no real tangible protections for cisgender women, all while punching down on another marginalized community, and sought to erase protections for transgender West Virginians,” says Ash Orr, a trans organizer in West Virginia, “Essentially, it amounted to yet another culture war bill designed to divert attention from genuine issues affecting all residents of West Virginia.”

Another bill that did not pass in West Virginia was House Bill 5297, which sought to entirely prohibit gender-affirming care for all transgender youth. The state had previously enacted a ban on gender-affirming care, but it included an exception for transgender youth experiencing “severe dysphoria.” HB 5297 aimed to eliminate that exception. More than 400 health care providers signed a letter opposing the bill, describing gender-affirming care as lifesaving and urging the legislature to reject it. The bill failed to pass before the legislature adjourned, meaning that at least some transgender youth in the state will continue to be able to receive care, making it one of the few red states where this is still the case.

A groundbreaking study from Perth, Australia, published in JAMA Pediatrics has found that only 1% of transgender youth receiving gender-affirming care at a clinic reidentified with their sex assigned at birth. This is in addition to the 4% who reidentified during the mental health assessment period or earlier and did not proceed with receiving gender-affirming care. The study, based on 552 young patients from 2014 to 2020, is poised to significantly influence the debate on gender-affirming care due to its unique methodology, which does not suffer from loss to follow-up—the detransition status of 548 patients was successfully determined. It will likely be cited as the most compelling study on low detransition rates in the coming months.

The study was made possible by the unique circumstances of the Perth Gender Diversity Service (GDS) clinic. As the only youth gender clinic in the state of Western Australia, the system was relatively isolated from other gender clinics. The clinicians treating patients took detailed notes on case closures and the reasons for those closures and followed up with appointments extensively. This allowed researchers to examine not only medical databases to find the status of each individual patient but also to research each patient’s clinical circumstances. As a result, reidentification status was able to be determined at the point of measurement for nearly every patient.

The study examined every patient who attended the clinic from 2014 to 2020. Out of 995 referred patients, 552 had their records closed by 2020. For these closed records, researchers determined the reasons by examining medical databases to ascertain if patients continued to adult care. If not, they deeply reviewed clinical notes to identify the closure reason—only in four cases were they unable to find a reason, completely bypassing “loss to follow-up,” a term referring to the portion of a research dataset that could not be collected when following up with patients who do not respond when contacted in studies that use a follow-up methodology. The vast majority of records were closed due to transfer to adult services. Only 29 patients reidentified with their sex assigned at birth, and of those, only two did so after the mental health assessment and commencement of gender-affirming medical care.

These gender critical sleezball quack scientists often manage to debunk their own claims w/o realizing. The damage they cause is hard to undo though. But please keep telling us how we are infected by some “woke” mind virus when y’all can’t effectively critically assess anything.

edit: skeezball to sleezball, i like skeeball

JUSTICE FOR NEX

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

this sounds really good!

i did not post this to make anyone’s day worse but i understand that intention does not override impact. i only posted it because as a trans person, i want the community to be informed and aware. i truly am sorry if this activated negative feelings in you and affected your mental health.

as far as what it can and what i hope it achieves: discourse and rallying against political forces that are not going to go away with our inattention.

As if gender ideology is a thing. Its on the same line as saying people believe in “transgenderism”. Its just being trans or gender non-conforming/genderqueer. These people think they even know what they are talking about when they haven’t the slightest clue whatsoever.

What an absolute piece of shit.