Peppermint Instagram – Posted @withregram • @chasestrangio The current state of discourse over trans medical care goes like this: -We don’t have enough data to know whether trans health is improved by this care even though we have decades of quantitative and qualitative studies and clinical experience documenting its efficacy. -We need to know whether trans people can succeed in life by having romantic and sexual partners -So, we will cut off their access to this medical care, push rhetoric that posits them as threats, bar them from updating their IDs or going to the bathroom, and that will show this care is not needed. There are so many anti-trans assumptions that guide the assessment of the existing data. Dr. Cass betrays her anti-trans bias by regurgitating the same talking points we have heard for 75 years. Here is how Dr. Levine, leading anti-trans expert hired to defend state bans on trans care explains why the care is harmful: “Sexual-romantic harms associated with transition: After adolescence, transgender individuals find the pool of individuals willing to develop a romantic and intimate relationship with them to be greatly diminished. When a trans person who passes well reveals his or her natal sex, many potential mates lose interest. When a trans person does not pass well, options are likely further diminished. But regardless of a person’s appearance, these adults soon learn that many of their dates are looking for exotic sexual experiences rather than genuinely loving relationships. (Levine 2017, at 5, 13; Levine 2013, at 40.)” Notice how he cites to nothing but himself. And then these presumptions are digested in the public discourse, legitimized by people like Dr. Cass and then used to strip us of our medical treatment. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a neutral scientific discourse.