Puberty blockers for children are child abuse
Riley Gaines said:
“That's called child abuse. And the fact that you have somebody on this panel that is advocating for the ability to debilitate young boys so that they have gender delusions, so that their body is now being mutilated, their actual biology is being changed irreversibly so that they compete against little girls.”
Giving hormonal medication to children sounds alarming on its face, and the word 'irreversible' taps into a genuine parental worry about permanent consequences for young people who may change their minds. Framing it as abuse borrows the moral weight of child protection.
Puberty blockers pause puberty; that is what they do, and it is why clinicians who have spent decades working with young people describe them as creating space for reflection rather than foreclosing it. The effects reverse when the medication stops, which is precisely the opposite of the irreversibility being described here. Calling that care mutilation, or suggesting it is administered to rig a sports competition, takes two entirely separate anxieties, one about medicine and one about athletics, and fuses them into something that does not exist in any clinic or any clinical guideline anywhere. The families who believe this framing are then armed with a reason to refuse their child something that, for many young people, is the difference between getting through adolescence and not getting through it at all.
What I said at the time:
“I'm the mother of 5 children, and I believe that every single child deserves the right to live their best”
Transgender young people and their families who are already navigating hostile environments: this framing pressures clinicians, legislators and parents to withhold care that reduces distress and suicidality.