34 Comments

They know exactly what they're doing, and they know exactly what it'll lead to; this is a feature, not a bug.

Expand full comment

100%.

Expand full comment

Thanks, I hate it.

(Read as: I understand and agree. I, too, am in software 😅)

Expand full comment

A feature of the United States which oppresses us.

Expand full comment

You took the words out of my mouth. They want to get rid of us.

Expand full comment

This is an international network trying to exterminate us, they are good friends of our 'Prime Minister', Viktor Orbán.

Expand full comment

The main problem I see is that, for the people enacting this kind of hate, kids attempting suicide is a feature, not a bug. They've made it clear they would far rather have dead kids than alive trans kids. And the actual facts and science doesn't matter when they have an entire ecosystem of alternative facts and fake "science" groups willing to peddle their hatred and bigotry.

The cruelty is the point and the goal.

Expand full comment

A trans genocide.

Expand full comment

The main problem is that they're not accountable to anyone for abuse of power. If legislators can target a group of people and make their lives unlivable to the point where they literally begin to commit suicide in immediately noticeable numbers without those legislators seeing any consequence, there's a huge problem with the system.

What if a blue state suddenly started pushing a law through that said registered republicans can't receive healthcare? It wouldn't break any statute that the transphobic laws didn't break. It might be the only way to get bipartisan support to fix the glitch that is allowing lawmakers to target trans people specifically with these laws. Cis people are still allowed both hrt medications and gender affirming surgeries, these laws only affect trans people.

Expand full comment

Yup.

Expand full comment

The forcing of trans people back into the closet is the intention of trans-care bans. They want the disenfranchisement from society. They want us to kill ourselves. It’s not the bug, it’s the feature. Trans people aren’t going to vote for them, why should they care?

Expand full comment

Exactly.

Expand full comment

"But this is just some activist fly-by-night journal" - Republicans, probably.

(Awfully impressive that this is in Nature no less, very hard to ignore)

Expand full comment

Yeah, exactly, it's not some tabloid.

Expand full comment

This is so tremendously important. This is the reality we KNOW and EXPECTED from these laws. They KNOW, too, while they scoffed at every warning in the faces of every testimony by medical professionals and most importantly trans people, youth, and their parents, some already grieving the loss and damage caused by these.

Eradication is the intent, whatever the means, and I hope those on the sidelines will actually start to understand through this sad data how morbidly validated in our tearful warnings we've been.

Expand full comment

I have been a psychotherapist in the TGNB community in Texas for the past 35 years. My clinical experience supports this research. I am so glad to have scientific back up for a truth I have known for years that gets discounted as just my opinion and my clientele's "sickness.".

It makes me extra grateful my early 20's daughter and her partner were able to move away from Texas this year - I knew it was eroding both of their mental health and stability. I am so very angry that as a person that moved to Texas 35 years ago, raised my child here, and have always been a front line mental health support for my clients and my community my child was no longer safe to live here. I miss her so much. So many members of my chosen family, as well as my clients, have also felt chased out of OUR home by our "leaders" Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton assisted by our congress "representatives" Cancun Cruz and Corrupt Cornyn. Shame of them for their corrupt, cynical use of my community to further their own greed and power by duping folks to vote against their own and our children's health and well being.

Expand full comment

The worst part about this is that the republicans won’t care, in fact they want us to hurt ourselves. You know, because we’re degenerates and according to their god we deserve it, blah blah blah, well guess what motherf*ckers been there done that, and I won’t be going back!

Expand full comment

So Zooey was right. Republicans really do have blood on their hands.

Expand full comment

The other tragedy is that many will NOT transition and that is a personal tragedy to anyone that needs to do so ASAP.

Expand full comment

No doubt true and relevant -- the people passing the legislation do not care.

I'd like to make them care.

Expand full comment

They only care if it's their children and even then...

Expand full comment

I think there was an elected official in Montana who said she would rather her children be dead than trans.

Expand full comment

That's what I was thinking of. Even for their own children, they would rather they didn't be happy wit themselves... or dead.

Expand full comment

So the laws are working as intended.

Expand full comment

Oh, what a surprise. Who would ever have guessed.

I knew I was trans when I was 3, in 1958. By high school, the only thing that was keeping me alive was my denial. Kids now don’t have the luxury of denial; the information is all right there. They know exactly who they are, what they need, and that it’s being withheld. Offing themselves may be the only self-determination they feel they have left.

I would have.

Expand full comment

We have so many different places where our freedoms are being threatened. Will it take an equivalent of the Kent State massacres to wake us up?

Expand full comment

Let us hope that it doesn't come to that. But that said, we have a full-on genocide happening now in Gaza under the auspices of Israel and the USA and it seems like not many are doing anything. Many are, but not enough...

Expand full comment

None of us should be surprised by the results of this research, no matter how awful it is. This is exactly what the right-wing zealots intended. Unfortunately, the U.S. is set to become an even more divided land of haves and have nots when it comes to GAC. The ban states will further dig in, regardless of who wins the election, and the protective blue states will maintain their protections and (hopefully) resist federal anti-trans legislative efforts (in the event of a GOP presidency)

Expand full comment

The abuse will continue until morale improves

Expand full comment

Hopefully the Biden and Harris administrations will use this evidence to push back. These results are horrifying

Expand full comment