As time passes, United States policy is rearing its ugly head more and more towards transgender citizens. Donald Trump has announced his 2024 candidacy and vowed to incriminate anyone who performs gender-affirming surgery in the US, preventing the sale or distribution of sex-related hormones, and even punishing teachers who suggest to a child that they may be transgender. South Dakota has recently passed a law officially banning all gender-affirming healthcare to any minor with no physical ambiguity in sex (House Bill 1080). States all over are raising bills that will harm transgender people, youth in particular. This needs to stop. 

These policies and decrees, no matter the reasoning, will harm the physical and mental sanctity of transgender people no matter the intent, and based on the flimsy and invalid arguments of those who oppose gender-affirming healthcare, it seems clear that the intent is hate, and yet they refuse to acknowledge it. 

The potential side effects of gender-affirming healthcare have been evident for many, many years, and yet opponents of it continue to champion the idea that it is mutilation and abuse, despite the unbelievable hardships that transgender people experience when unable to access it. They argue that these treatments poison and damage the nation's youth, while ignoring the statistics such as transgender suicide, and pretending as if gender dysphoria is nonexistent, claiming that they know better in their effort to "protect" transgender people. 

The United Nations' definition of genocide states that genocide includes "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." These policies will undoubtedly cause serious mental harm to transgender people, and likely bodily harm and death as well due to the prevalence of self-harm and suicide among transgender people. Similarly, the prohibiting of gender-affirming healthcare can also be argued to inflict "conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction", as both suicide and murder are horrifyingly common particularly before access to gender-affirming healthcare. The only aspect of this definition that does not seem to qualify these policies as genocide is that "transgender people" are not among the protected groups. And yet, transgender people, similarly to national, ethnical, and racial groups, cannot choose to be a part of the group. 

The year is 2023; the prevalence of such policies refuses to decrease; the US becomes increasingly hostile to transgender people without proper reason. We cannot wait for the situation to improve. We cannot wait for people to understand. We cannot wait for it to affect us directly. We must demand our right to live how we wish, and we must demand it for those in need as well. The longer we wait, the worse it will develop, but we cannot simply give up on the United States either. We must change it for the better, not only for ourselves, but for everyone. 

South Dakota House Bill 1080​

Donald Trump declares his intent to ban gender-affirming healthcare​

United Nations' Definition of Genocide