Three bills have passed the Utah house that will affect youth gender medicine in the state: one completely bans all hormonal prescriptions to alter gender identity for minors (Utah previously had only a moratorium on new prescriptions), another forbids all publicly funded employers from offering insurance that covers such procedures, and a third requires insurance companies to cover costs of detransition. The bills appear likely to pass in the Senate as well and obtain the governor’s signature.
In Washington state, the issue of trans participation in female athletics will likely be on the ballot in November.
Supporters of the ballot initiative have jumped on claims that a female wrestler was “sexually assaulted” during a match when her vagina was groped or even penetrated by a trans opponent. The videos and photos of the match are less than conclusive.
Trans activist Erin Reed has called attention to a study of suicides by trans youth in the UK recently obtained by a FOIA request, showing that they jumped from 9 in 2019-21 to 32 in 2021-23, after which they went down again in 2023-24. She attributes the increase to restrictions the NHS placed on gender-affirming care in December 2020, but the numbers are small and may have partly been after-effects of COVID-era isolation.
