‘At high risk for chronic stressors that may lead to poor mental health outcomes and risk-taking’.
Department of Defense (DOD) researchers argued for expanding gender transition treatments for children as young as seven who belong to military families in a journal article from March.
Legislative efforts in states have created a “gender affirming care crisis” for minors by restricting medical treatments and exacerbating alleged mental health issues associated with regulations on bathroom use and sports participation, the researchers argued in the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health. DOD should “publicly declare a position” in favor of cross-gender treatments for military-affiliated youths and take steps to counteract what the doctors view as health-jeopardizing barriers to treatment, they said.
“Affirming care has only recently become politicized; protection of gender-affirming medical care for military-affiliated [transgender] youths may require a declarative position without tolerance for personal biases, as the DoD has historically achieved for other minoritized groups,” the authors wrote.