A judge ordered Planned Parenthood to hand records of transgender care over to Andrew Bailey.
A St. Louis judge has ruled that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is entitled to Planned Parenthood’s transgender care records, ordering the nonprofit to turn over some of its most sensitive files to the man who has built his unelected political career on restricting health care access for trans people.
In his Thursday decision, Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer wrote that Bailey can collect documents under Missouri’s consumer protection statute that aren’t protected under federal mandate, namely the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA.
“It is clear from the statute that the Defendant has the broad investigative powers when the consumer is in possible need of protection and there is no dispute in this matter,” wrote Stelzer. “Therefore, the Defendant is entitled to some of the requested documents within his [Civil Investigative Demand].”
Bailey, who last year attempted to implement a ban on gender-affirming care for people of all ages, was quick to celebrate the decision, calling it a “big day” for the state.
So “Trans care” is a unique thing. There is some care that overlaps with the idea of “everyone else care” that is withheld from trans people by specific barriers of perceived sex. Like if a cis man is experiencing routine testicular pain getting them removed is a very different conversation in a doctor’s office than a trans person who wants them removed for endocrinology reasons. The surgery is the exact same for both groups however. Mastectomy too tends to be very easy for cis women to get if they have a history of cancer in the family and want to play it safe rather than a trans person who wants their boobs gone because they have been binding them down whenever they can for mental health reasons. Same surgery but the non-trans option gets the fast pass. A lot of places you need the sign off of having years going to a mental health professional who vouches for you before that barrier is removed. Any surgery that has a “gendered” component usually has an extra barrier if you as a sex generally outside of the regular percieved demographic and is elective.
Then there is care that is more specific to trans people (though cis exceptions sometimes apply). Cross sex application of horomones for a feminizing or masculinizing, facial feminizing surgery where the bones of the skull are shaved down, vaginoplasty or phalloplasty (bottom surgery) tend to be mainly the domain of a history of research of medicine application specifically in the interests of trans people. Cis people aren’t terribly likely to chase these options.
Then you get issues with cis medical bias. “Trans Broken Arm” syndrome exists where uninformed or bigoted doctors forcefully stop someone’s horomonal regime sending them into menopause-like states of distress needlessly for things that a difference between the sexes endocrine systems do not effect. Or, because they are uninformed in the other direction they give bad dosages based on birth sex (trans people using horomones actually react to medications based in their hormonal makeup and fat distribution - not their birth sex characteristics) because of basically ignorance or bigotry where they refuse to treat trans people effectively because of what their beliefs a woman or man is rather than the actual medical best practice.
Lots of extra barriers for trans people tend to exist in seeking all types of medical care. Trans medicine is simultaneously a unique field of scientific study, a practical use of medicine for a specific targeted treatment, a philosophy of bodily autonomy and series of patchwork legal issues that can restrict options that could be applied to anyone by basing it’s availability on sex.
trans care is only unique in that its trying to get shit by calling it trans care. and not i want hormones and puberty blockers and if i can a surgery. that is the primary reason its called trans care to piggy back of something that is already establish and associate it as the same thing. lets just not forget this is all just for appearance the opposite of something like cancer so what could be the mystery of one being harder to get then the other. hormonal makeup and fat distribution is based on your gender.
“All for appearance” is a common way trans health is dismissed as not being valid… But it is a cis gender bias that does not recognize how a difference of how one is perceived can so negatively effect one’s experience.
Let’s put the trans experience to the side for a moment.
The idea of vanity is seductive isn’t it? The idea that a desire beautiful is shallow. That we should place no value on our appearance because it’s fleeting and empty. The idea that wanting to appear anyway other than whatever is natural is morally defunct.
Yet if you are ugly by a society’s measure people literally treat you as lesser. Some will bend over backwards for a beautiful person and deny their time and consideration to people who are not pretty. It’s harder to find work, harder to be promoted, if you are past the point into what is considered “disfigured” there are people who react to your very presence as being inappropriate for children or treat you as something sub human. There can be advantages to being reasonably ugly as a lot of people essentially ignoring you can be preferred to being showed by attention as beauty comes with it’s own layers of issues and lack of privilege.
What we look like holds an incredible amount of power as to how our daily experience is shaped. It influences how comfortable we are in public, how confident we are dealing with strangers what doors open and which are slammed in our faces. We are regularly are told appearances shouldn’t matter and treat then as trifling issues to be dismissed and then are thrown into the world where experience shows that is absolutely not the case.
Half the issue on the trans side of things is we are told that appearances shouldn’t matter but when we don’t pass as cis people on casual inspection we face harassment, lack of privilege and people denying who we are and calling us things people know will hurt us. We are told by the hordes of strangers we have to face we are not “real” and thus are just pretending if we haven’t medically transitioned as our social transitions are “not enough”. When that becomes unbearable we are told we are shallow for wanting not to face crippling social anxiety and told it is a moral failing to want beauty… But most of us aren’t aiming for beautiful. We just want to be a kind of invisible that cis people take absolutely for granted. If we are left with no place of comfort, starved for human connection on our terms a lot of us die. And yet it’s a moral failure to want to look like anything but whatever random roll of the dice we got so our deaths aren’t counted as being because of how we appear. It’s chalked up as being more nebulously about how “being trans is hard” and why is it hard? Because of shallow thoughtless people who refuse to judge us on anything but what our bodies look like. Sometimes at the level of DNA because that’s suddenly all they choose to care about.
i can see you are very very very invested in this. appearances always matters its biology you can only lessen how much it matters. but don’t really know how much that matter for trans people because of course its not only just appearances its the whole body that’s a big difference now you need to take that part into account too. and there is such a thing as passing you can try and down play that all you want but that will never go away. like i know there are differences some people pass better then others but your still dealing with biology so i don’t think its something you can ever get away from. and i do think there are definitely people who make it worse for the rest like some people obviously just want attention and feel special because now they have something to build there whole superficial identity around there are levels of this from a fat guy in dress and wig to an internet influencer who does it for cloud. for the most part i don’t care about what people do when there adults that’s your business. i just don’t like the ideology around it like trans women are women why use trans then i can never take something like that seriously so willfully ignored to realty i have no respect for that. and it definitely does not incentivize me to have respect for people like that. like i can accommodate you but after something like that i don’t really feel the need. not really a good way to earn the respect of people that’s not how respect works the pronouns is the same thing. also just saying give hormones and surgeries to everybody who asks for it seems crazy to me. something that involved should never work like that. that is just asking for problems just imagine how that can be abused or go wrong. no other body altering drugs or surgery would work like that. i also do think unless we can create a clone of you but change it to the gender you want and put your brain in that body there will always be inbuilt problems that come along with being trans there is no way around that.
Trans people do not ask to be physically perfect. We understand the limitations of what is possible and weigh the consequences carefully. So much of the discourse treats our medical care as a problem…but a problem to whom? It isn’t your body, it isn’t your risk and we the people making these decisions are doing so in a way that the medical community agrees demonstrates a rational approach to a real problem. It’s not a conventional rationale from a cis perspective because cisness is a different experience. Trying to explain being trans to a cis person is like trying to explain color theory to the blind - They can understand it and see the rationality of it explained carefully enough but it is an experience so fundamentally different from their lived reality that it at the end of the day comes down to humility. Can you accept that people exist who experience life completely differently than you and have solid perceptions and understandings about themselves and are still rational human beings? Or do you place yourself and your “ick” factor as all important. You may be the center of your universe but everyone is. You do not have to experience our lives but we do, so step aside and let us live.
At the end of the day most of us do not require your buy in. Unless you are someone important to us like a parent or a sibling, a trusted friend or a lover what you believe about us in your heart of hearts is your business and doesn’t hurt us unless you decide to be outwardly cruel. But if you decide that for whatever reason you understand us better than we understand ourselves and decide to make our choices for us… you BECOME our problem.
maybe some trans people are not the best representatives of trans people because some want the craziest shit possible and it seems to me they are distorting everything. ;But if you decide that for whatever reason you understand us better than we understand ourselves and decide to make our choices for us… you BECOME our problem,- this seems unfalsifiable you are essentially saying its my feeling so you just have to follow what i say and you cant criticize me because its my feelings when feeling are the most unreliable sense there is. this precludes any rationale or evidence against your feelings because everything is based on your feelings not reality. the medical community seems exceptionally compromised in this aria because a lot it is based on feelings and you don’t want to be a bigot do you. to the point that people doing studies that some trans activists don’t like get protested so no real research gets done that might go against your feelings this all seems very dangerous to me and a recipe for disaster. i accept that people can have different experiences that is life but i also accept reality like your example of explaining color to the blind when they are blind from birth of course. even if they cant see color it still exists even if they feel it does not it does not matter what a blind person does they will never be able to change this reality no matter what they do. reality does not depend on feelings or your lived experiences. if you want to be believable you need something outside your feelings. and that is the biggest difficulty because its all very subjective outside drugs and surgeries themselves its why you should get them.
What is the “craziest shit possible” and which groups are supporting it? “Someone on Twitter said something and got two likes” isn’t very interesting here.
What evidence do you have that the medical field is compromised? What evidence would convince you otherwise?
Depression is about feelings, too. Should we tell people with depression to fuck off it’s fake no assistance for you?
ah yes i need proof and you can just say some shit. you are doing the exact same shit im doing no difference at all. i will just keep doing what i was doing just like you. i will just ignore your debate tactics. yes Depression is about feelings and they will not be able to get appearance altering surgeries in that state. the depression thing is not helping your argument.
Actually, depressed people aren’t barred from getting a rhinoplasty, or a boob job, or lip filler, so I’m not sure what the point you’re making is. You haven’t provided any evidence. I also haven’t, yet. If I did, would you care, or would you blow it off? Things you’ve said to me so far suggest that any research I provide will be called woke and captured and lies, so I haven’t bothered. If there’s a point, I’m happy to. You’ve just explicitly said things that make me doubt there is.