In guidelines released by the Nebraska DHHS, transgender youth in the state will have many requirements to start care, including one that has been likened to conversion therapy.
As a therapist who works with trans youth, this horrifies me. It forces therapists to ignore best practices, and thus to be unethical in our work. Among other things it creates a huge burden of documentation requirements which in and of itself will dissuade therapists from working with trans youth. Legislators have no business being in between therapists and our clients. And the thought that these regulations will serve as a model for other states to implement...as inevitably happens...is chilling.
No therapist can ethically implement these draconian rules. The effect will be the same as we are seeing with OB/GYN's and prenatal care leaving conservative states if these laws are upheld.
As if transitioning wasn't cripplingly expensive as it is, and there's sod-all in Nebraska for high paying jobs so this puts it even further out of reach.
Not to mention, things will become even more grim as the better educated youth and adults flee the state, lowering the quality of life for everyone and turning it to an even bigger embarrassment than it is currently.
At least $8k that goes into the pocket of some unethical hater willing to implement these rules and that does nothing but harm the child/patient. A facial's version of freedom!
Super Ouch! I make 25 times less than $400 an hour, but fortunately I’m a Veteran and therapy is free. VA medical docs only make $85 an hour for 40 hours a week. Just goes to show you how much padding these private practice psychologists need to create.
I had to educate my 2 VA psychologists about transgender issues and they earn much less than the medical docs. They should be paying us until they can pass a WPATH test. Thankfully, my VA therapists just went by the gender disphoria guidelines and didn’t try to gatekeep me. And my Doc, while trans ignorant many years ago has been as accommodating as legally possible considering Trump and the VA and even Biden politics won’t allow trans surgeries thru the VA.
God, I hate Republicans. Fucking Nazis implementing insane laws designed to either kill people they don't like, or force those they don't like to kill themselves. I can't say that I'm surprised.
I'm growing ever more concerned that the Liberal wing is going to capitulate to these bastards, seeing as we're nothing more than an expendable pawn in the games of those in office. I feel more and more like we're surrounded by a growing number of unfriendly forces, adrift in an uncaring or adversarial world.
Sadly, I agree. And to be clear, there is no liberal wing. They only look liberal because the GOP has become so, so extreme. At best, they are center right. There is no political left in the USA.
Indeed, those are my views as well, and the "liberals" as we know them now are not truly caring of a group as small as ourselves. So the question becomes then "what do we do from here?" When our votes cannot sway the populace, and those in power refuse to hear our voice, what do we do from here. We have some allies, for instance Megan Hunt, but not enough to overwhelm the opposition.
And yes, I meant to say Republicans. Those who vote for this evil are this evil. That's true even if they don't understand what they are voting for. They have an obligation to research their political alliances.
This will result in the deaths of trans children. People who have gone through conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide. This is an elminationist policy designed to cull a minority.
A large, first-of-its-kind study has found that transgender people who reported receiving so-called conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide during their lifetime than their peers who had engaged in other types of therapy, NBC News reports. And for those who were younger than age 10 when they underwent attempts by practitioners to align their gender identity with their sex assigned at birth, the relative risk of attempted suicide was more than four times as great. The study, based on a 2015 survey of nearly 28,000 transgender people, also found that conversion therapy survivors were 1.5 times more likely than peers who underwent other kinds of therapy to have experienced "severe psychological distress" in the month before the survey, researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. Another important finding: There was no significant difference in risk for people who reported receiving conversion therapy from religious advisers versus secular therapists.
"One rule, for instance, mandates that trans youth must have been fully out and living as their gender identity for six months. "
My son had been a boy since he could dress himself and assert his identify - EXCEPT he kept his hair long until he felt brave enough to say it out loud. When did the clock start ticking for 'fully out'? When he cut his hair short? OMG, the cruelty and arrogance of this statement. A lot of kids come out when puberty starts, which makes six months BIG DEAL for waiting. Scary, knowing in Canada we are not far behind this.
As with other state-mandated restrictions on GAC, this is huge overreach; medical decisions should always be left in the hands of patients, families, and doctors, and not unlicensed politicians. This is yet another culture war attack on a vulnerable group, and yes it’s cruel. It needs to be challenged in court if possible, similar to what was done with the Missouri attempt several months ago to severely restrict (effectively ban) GAC for adults. In the meantime, trans kids and their families who want timely medical care may simply have to travel to one of the “safe”, politically blue states....there may just be no other option (unless and until the red states start trying to criminalize the ability of patients to leave their state for care).
I'm glad I came across this Substack. Who is organizing politically around pushing back in Nebraska (and elsewhere) on this sort of targeting of trans youth? Are there local groups in Nebraska I could support? I am a leader of a large Democratic grassroots activist group and we increasingly work all over the country, not just in our geographic area.
From the makers of crisis pregnancy centers, privatized prison healthcare and The Hot Chick, fascism is proud to present you with their next big hit! Rob Schneider in The Conversionator.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe that the best way to help children is by making them uncomfortable, unable to get life-saving medicine, and postponing medically necessary treatment until it's too late to prevent harm in the hopes that we can save their immortal soul by not trying to save their worldly bodies.
Taking the Care out of Healthcare.
Look out for our next big hit, expanding the troubled teen kidnapping, I mean... help camps?
(if you can't tell, this is sarcasm which is about the only way I can handle this shit)
It's a Catch-22 scenario with new twists. They don't give a damn about these kids. It's all based on delusional religious beliefs and fake facts and fake science.
I volunteer as a crisis counselor and happened to talk to a suicidal contact in Nebraska last night. They're 17 years old, trans masc, and desperate for affirmation and HRT. These guidelines will be fatal to youth like this. Erin, thank you for everything you do and for amplifying this awful news.
This stuff is recognized by credible psychological organizations as harmful and unethical. Presumably "therapists" and other mental "health" practitioners who do this can lose their license. Can we get credible psychological organizations to boldly come out against what Nebraska is doing?
I swear to God these people must be up all night dreaming this stuff up. "Hey, did you see what they did in state X? Surely we can be more cruel than that!"
This is a horrifying practice of state mandated conversion therapy.
NOTE: The regulations have been removed from the website, but you can see the archive here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231001232053/https://dhhs.ne.gov/Documents/181-NAC-8.pdf
If they took it off their website, they absolutely know they are being disingenuous.
As a therapist who works with trans youth, this horrifies me. It forces therapists to ignore best practices, and thus to be unethical in our work. Among other things it creates a huge burden of documentation requirements which in and of itself will dissuade therapists from working with trans youth. Legislators have no business being in between therapists and our clients. And the thought that these regulations will serve as a model for other states to implement...as inevitably happens...is chilling.
No therapist can ethically implement these draconian rules. The effect will be the same as we are seeing with OB/GYN's and prenatal care leaving conservative states if these laws are upheld.
Even more evil than it seems at first glance. Two hours of therapy per week at over $200/hrs. Do the math. Naziism at its purest.
As if transitioning wasn't cripplingly expensive as it is, and there's sod-all in Nebraska for high paying jobs so this puts it even further out of reach.
Not to mention, things will become even more grim as the better educated youth and adults flee the state, lowering the quality of life for everyone and turning it to an even bigger embarrassment than it is currently.
At least $8k that goes into the pocket of some unethical hater willing to implement these rules and that does nothing but harm the child/patient. A facial's version of freedom!
Is it that low? My one hour per week is 400 before insurance
Maybe. I am just basing that on the therapist I had. For gender affirming care by the way!
Super Ouch! I make 25 times less than $400 an hour, but fortunately I’m a Veteran and therapy is free. VA medical docs only make $85 an hour for 40 hours a week. Just goes to show you how much padding these private practice psychologists need to create.
I had to educate my 2 VA psychologists about transgender issues and they earn much less than the medical docs. They should be paying us until they can pass a WPATH test. Thankfully, my VA therapists just went by the gender disphoria guidelines and didn’t try to gatekeep me. And my Doc, while trans ignorant many years ago has been as accommodating as legally possible considering Trump and the VA and even Biden politics won’t allow trans surgeries thru the VA.
God, I hate Republicans. Fucking Nazis implementing insane laws designed to either kill people they don't like, or force those they don't like to kill themselves. I can't say that I'm surprised.
I'm growing ever more concerned that the Liberal wing is going to capitulate to these bastards, seeing as we're nothing more than an expendable pawn in the games of those in office. I feel more and more like we're surrounded by a growing number of unfriendly forces, adrift in an uncaring or adversarial world.
These are not fun thoughts.
Sadly, I agree. And to be clear, there is no liberal wing. They only look liberal because the GOP has become so, so extreme. At best, they are center right. There is no political left in the USA.
Indeed, those are my views as well, and the "liberals" as we know them now are not truly caring of a group as small as ourselves. So the question becomes then "what do we do from here?" When our votes cannot sway the populace, and those in power refuse to hear our voice, what do we do from here. We have some allies, for instance Megan Hunt, but not enough to overwhelm the opposition.
So what do we do from here?
This is literally genocide behind the facade of "protecting the children". This has been their intention all along!
And yes, I meant to say Republicans. Those who vote for this evil are this evil. That's true even if they don't understand what they are voting for. They have an obligation to research their political alliances.
This will result in the deaths of trans children. People who have gone through conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide. This is an elminationist policy designed to cull a minority.
Edit:
The impact of conversion therapy on our community: https://www.science.org/content/article/new-study-reveals-risks-transgender-conversion-therapy
A large, first-of-its-kind study has found that transgender people who reported receiving so-called conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide during their lifetime than their peers who had engaged in other types of therapy, NBC News reports. And for those who were younger than age 10 when they underwent attempts by practitioners to align their gender identity with their sex assigned at birth, the relative risk of attempted suicide was more than four times as great. The study, based on a 2015 survey of nearly 28,000 transgender people, also found that conversion therapy survivors were 1.5 times more likely than peers who underwent other kinds of therapy to have experienced "severe psychological distress" in the month before the survey, researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Psychiatry. Another important finding: There was no significant difference in risk for people who reported receiving conversion therapy from religious advisers versus secular therapists.
As always, they are what they accuse others of being... “Lucifer at its finest” lol
"One rule, for instance, mandates that trans youth must have been fully out and living as their gender identity for six months. "
My son had been a boy since he could dress himself and assert his identify - EXCEPT he kept his hair long until he felt brave enough to say it out loud. When did the clock start ticking for 'fully out'? When he cut his hair short? OMG, the cruelty and arrogance of this statement. A lot of kids come out when puberty starts, which makes six months BIG DEAL for waiting. Scary, knowing in Canada we are not far behind this.
As with other state-mandated restrictions on GAC, this is huge overreach; medical decisions should always be left in the hands of patients, families, and doctors, and not unlicensed politicians. This is yet another culture war attack on a vulnerable group, and yes it’s cruel. It needs to be challenged in court if possible, similar to what was done with the Missouri attempt several months ago to severely restrict (effectively ban) GAC for adults. In the meantime, trans kids and their families who want timely medical care may simply have to travel to one of the “safe”, politically blue states....there may just be no other option (unless and until the red states start trying to criminalize the ability of patients to leave their state for care).
I'm glad I came across this Substack. Who is organizing politically around pushing back in Nebraska (and elsewhere) on this sort of targeting of trans youth? Are there local groups in Nebraska I could support? I am a leader of a large Democratic grassroots activist group and we increasingly work all over the country, not just in our geographic area.
From the makers of crisis pregnancy centers, privatized prison healthcare and The Hot Chick, fascism is proud to present you with their next big hit! Rob Schneider in The Conversionator.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe that the best way to help children is by making them uncomfortable, unable to get life-saving medicine, and postponing medically necessary treatment until it's too late to prevent harm in the hopes that we can save their immortal soul by not trying to save their worldly bodies.
Taking the Care out of Healthcare.
Look out for our next big hit, expanding the troubled teen kidnapping, I mean... help camps?
(if you can't tell, this is sarcasm which is about the only way I can handle this shit)
It also takes the Health out of Healthcare
This is so devastating. Is there any kind of fund set up to assist families that can't afford to leave the state to protect their kids?
It's a Catch-22 scenario with new twists. They don't give a damn about these kids. It's all based on delusional religious beliefs and fake facts and fake science.
I volunteer as a crisis counselor and happened to talk to a suicidal contact in Nebraska last night. They're 17 years old, trans masc, and desperate for affirmation and HRT. These guidelines will be fatal to youth like this. Erin, thank you for everything you do and for amplifying this awful news.
This stuff is recognized by credible psychological organizations as harmful and unethical. Presumably "therapists" and other mental "health" practitioners who do this can lose their license. Can we get credible psychological organizations to boldly come out against what Nebraska is doing?
I swear to God these people must be up all night dreaming this stuff up. "Hey, did you see what they did in state X? Surely we can be more cruel than that!"