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OPPOSE- House Bill 2002
Friends,
The House Behavioral Health & Health Care Committee is hearing a bill this Monday that we MUST OPPOSE, House Bill 2002. This is a two-part mega-bill. The portion I want to talk about today deals with Gender-affirming treatment.
The bill aims to drastically expand access to what is called “Gender-affirming treatment” without any guardrails to assure that we are not mis-treating children and young adults.
We need your help to fight this bill. We need to let our legislators know that without adequate protections in place we are damaging our kids. What happened to “first, do no harm?”
The bill is scheduled for a hearing on Monday, March 20th, starting at 3 pm at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. The hearing will last into the evening. You can help by testifying in person, testifying virtually, submitting written testimony, and emailing the committee members.
To testify, just follow this link.
- Select “Submit Testimony” to submit written testimony. Note this can be done anonymously; just use my name and my email address EdDiehl@oregonlegislature.gov. In the ‘on behalf of’ box type “Anonymous”.
- Select “Register to Testify” to testify in person or virtually. You will be sent a link to participate virtually. NOTE: Your testimony will be limited to 2 minutes! That is a hard limit, so please write your testimony down to make sure you get your points across. Start your testimony with “Chair Nosse (pronounced like ‘dose’), Vice-Chairs Goodwin and Nelson, my name is <your name>. I am speaking in opposition to the gender-affirmation treatment sections of House Bill 2002.”
To email the committee, find all the committee members at this link, and click on their names to get their email addresses.
Background
As defined in the bill, “Gender-affirming treatment” means a procedure, service, drug, device or product that a physical or behavioral health care provider prescribes to treat an individual for incongruence between the individual’s gender identity and the individual’s sex assignment at birth. This includes hormone treatments, puberty blockers, mastectomies, vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty and other treatments that make permanent, life-altering changes to a person.
It mandates that such treatments be covered by health insurance and the Oregon Health Plan. It also protects gender-affirming providers from being denied malpractice insurance or getting their license revoked. By mandating insurance coverage and protecting doctors, this bill sets Oregon up to provide treatments to patients from other states.
Under Oregon law, gender-affirming treatment can be provided without parental consent at age 15. With parental consent there are no age limits. And the Oregon Health Authority guidelines state that “medically it is safer and easier to conduct surgery earlier, before secondary sex characteristics are fully developed.”
Why is Oregon expanding these gender treatments and encouraging them on youth, while the rest of the world is pulling back? Europe has been ahead of us with embracing gender treatments, but lately the alarm bells have been going off and they are pulling back:
- The UK has seen a shocking rise in gender transition surgeries, up fivefold in 3 years. As such, National Health Service plans to restrict treatment of youth under 18, stating there is “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making.” The NHS is also warning doctors not to encourage kids to change their names and pronouns, finding that most kids who think they are transgender are going through a “transient phase.”
- In France, The Academie Nationale de Medecine, a medical research organization, issued a report in February 2022 urging medical professionals to use “great medical caution” when treating “transgender” children. The report emphasized that medical supply for “gender transition” treatments has met the demand, which they call an “epidemic-like phenomenon,” and that children must receive psychiatric care before any hormonal or surgical intervention. "The risk of over-diagnosis is real, as shown by the increasing number of transgender young adults wishing to ‘detransition’. It is therefore advisable to extend as much as possible the psychological support phase,” states the report.
- Sweden, the first country in the world to legalize “gender reassignments” in 1972, proposed a law in 2018 allowing children as young as 12 to legally change their gender, access “transition surgery” at age 15, and no longer need parental consent for “gender transitions.” However, after a 1500% rise in cases, Sweden decided in February 2022 to halt hormone therapy for minors except in very rare cases. In December 2022, the National Board of Health and Welfare said mastectomies for teenage girls wanting to “transition” should be limited to a research setting. “The uncertain state of knowledge calls for caution,” Board department head Thomas Linden said.
- The Netherlands is also following suit. Dutch researchers began sounding the alarm last year, pointing out that “gender-affirming care” research from a decade earlier is no longer valid given the scope of the epidemic. According to one prominent researcher: “We conduct structural research in the Netherlands. But the rest of the world is blindly adopting our research.” While every doctor or psychologist who engages in transgender health care should feel the obligation to do a proper assessment before and after intervention.
Unfortunately, with HB2002, Oregon is doubling-down on gender-affirming treatments without fully understanding the damage being done to children and young adults. The rapid rise of transitions is also being accompanied by a rapid rise in detransitions – we are not exercising necessary care to determine who should and should not receive treatment. 80-90% of the children with gender dysphoria grow out of it, why are we pushing them along to get transgender treatment? There are no long-term studies to support our approach.
These hormone and medical treatments commit our youth to a lifetime of chemical dependency. In some cases, they are made sterile or develop chronic symptoms as a result of their treatments. In too many cases, we are rushing to treatment at a time when our youth are the most vulnerable and confused. Instead of getting the care they deserve we are pushing them down a path of permanent change and regret.
For more information on this epidemic, please check out https://www.detransawareness.org/ and https://affirmationgenerationmovie.com/.
Thank you for your help. We must make our voices heard! It is up to us to speak the truth about the damage we are inflicting on our youth.
Sincerely,
 Ed Diehl
House District 17
 Capitol Phone: 503-986-1417
Capitol Address: 900 Court St. NE, H-378, Salem, Oregon 97301
Email: Rep.EdDiehl@oregonlegislature.gov
Website: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/diehl
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