Both houses of the Tennessee legislature have passed a bill to mandate that any medical provider who receives state funds must report aggregate data concerning transgender medical treatments, including prescriptions, surgeries, and treatment for detransition, which the bill requires of any facility which offers transition. LGBT groups in the state vociferously opposed the measure with protests in the state capitol, arguing that it would violate privacy and “dox” trans patients, but the data will only be reported in aggregate without personal identifiers, and the Senate version of the bill insisted that even the county of the patient’s residence would not be reported. Amid the welter of anti-trans bills proposed in that state and many others, one can understand the anxiety of trans citizens, but medical research into questions like the prevalence of desistance and detransition in the U.S. has long been hampered by the lack of reliable centralized data of the sort that is available in European countries with national health care systems. After reconciliation between the slightly different versions of the bill passed in the two chambers, it appears certain to be signed by Tennessee’s governor.
Does Data Collection Threaten Transgender Policy?
