Action Alert: Stop Maine LD 227
Email State Committee Members to Oppose this Bill- TODAY
Earlier this year, a proposed state bill in Maine, called “An Act to Safeguard Gender Affirming Care,” was voted down 12-0 in the state Judiciary Committee after significant public outcry. Many of you participated in a previous LGBT-CC Action Alert around that legislation. Thank you!
The language of the original bill is now back in a new proposed bill, LD 227. This time it is packaged together with reproductive health care. The new bill establishes both gender-affirming care and reproductive care as a legal right, and defines both as “legally protected healthcare.”
Please see this Courage is a Habit webpage for basic information on the bill, a direct link to the proposed legislation, and a simple, 2 minute form to fill out to express your concerns and opposition to the bill. The form will be emailed directly to the eight committee members who will be voting on the bill.
The deadline for comments is Wednesday, March 20th at 10pm ET.
Your comments can be simple:
1) I am writing as a concerned (parent, therapist, doctor, etc) and I want to express my opposition to Maine LD 227
2) I oppose this bill because I am concerned that medical interventions for gender-distressed youth are experimental and may be causing irreversible harm to vulnerable children and adolescents.
3) Add any specific reasons why this bill could be harmful to minors and their families and/or why it should not be the role of the state to separate minors from their parents.
4) While this bill is being considered in Maine, it threatens the safety of minors across the country.
5) You may add any other comments you would like to share about the reasons you urge them to oppose this legislation.
Thank you for participating! If you email, please share about your experience in the comments.
Signed and shared. I added this:
So-called "gender-affirming care" is experimental. Many adolescents with dysphoria around their biological sex turn out to be same-sex attracted and/or are on the autism spectrum. They are often the kinds of kids who are bullied by their peers. There are many stories from people who went down the transition path as adolescents and later regretted their decision to do so. They now wish someone had delved deeper into the things they were saying rather than immediately affirming their transgender status.
The social transitioning of prepubescent children usually says more about the parent wanting praise for having a special child than about the child being "born in the wrong body." A boy who likes pink and dressing up like a princess is still a boy. A rough-and-tumble girl is still a girl. "Gender-affirming care" relies on sex stereotypes rather than science, and the "trans kids" are the ones who will pay the price for upholding this pseudoscience.
More attention needs to be paid to teaching kids to accept those who are different rather than forcing those kids who are different to conform to stereotypes. I was badly bullied as a child. I wasn't same-sex attracted but was mildly gender-nonconforming. I don't know if I'm on the autism spectrum. I do have the inattentive form of ADHD, which I didn't realize until I was in my fifties. I was often shamed for the behaviors that come with inattentive ADHD by both my peers and the adults in my life. I really, really did not like myself. I would have been an easy target for the type of medical professional tasked with "affirming" a transgender status. Oh, the fact that I prefer pants to dresses and like playing with model construction equipment means I'm really a boy! Also, if I get my uterus removed, I'll never have to have another period. Sign me up!
The regret would have come later, and I don't know if I would have survived it. It's a mercy I hit puberty in 1977, long before "gender-affirming care" was around. However, there are many vulnerable adolescents today with a story similar to mine who will fall victim to this experimental branch of medicine, and they will discover that nobody likes to help detransitioners pick up the pieces since they fly in the face of the Trans Joy mantra.
They are proposing a bill like this in Illinois also.. House Bill 4876…Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act amended to include charging parents/ caregivers with abuse if they deny their child abortions or gender affirming care… not sure where it is now.. was proposed on Feb 6