Mick Hartley

AP headline yesterday – Trans minors protected from parents under Washington law:

Minors seeking gender-affirming care in Washington will be protected from the intervention of estranged parents under a measure Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law Tuesday.

The new law is part of a wave of legislation this year in Democratic-led states intended to give refuge amid a conservative movement in which lawmakers in other states have attacked transgender rights and limited or banned gender-affirming care for minors.

Licensed shelters and host homes in Washington had generally been required to notify parents within 72 hours when a minor came into their care. Under the new law, facilities can instead contact the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, which could then attempt to reunify the family if feasible. Youths will also be allowed to stay at host homes — private, volunteer homes that temporarily house young people without parental permission.

The happy-clappy sounding "gender-affirming care", of course, means medical intervention – puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, very possibly surgery such as double mastectomies….lives ruined in the name of a cult-like belief in the desirability of a scientific nonsense: changing sex. There are no "trans minors": only poor kids deluded into thinking – by social media and by the spread of gender ideology – that somehow they've been born in the wrong body, and it's cool to be trans, and going along with it means that all their problems will disappear. Parents clearly are the ones whose duty it is to step in and tell their kids that this is nonsense and they need to grow up and grow out of it – but the state says no. This is almost North Korean in the level of state takeover of children's lives and the denial of parental rights and responsibilities.

“With this bill, Washington leads the way by taking a more compassionate, developmentally appropriate, and reasoned approach to support these youth as they access gender-affirming treatment and reproductive health care services,” Inslee said shortly before signing the measure.

And see how pleased with themselves these people are, fighting against those nasty conservatives who don't think it's a good thing that children should be mutilated.

More than a half-dozen states, from New Jersey to Vermont to Colorado, have passed or are considering similar bills or executive orders around transgender health care, civil rights and other legal protections. In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in March signed a bill outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation for the first time in her state.

Oregon lawmakers are expected to pass a bill that would further expand insurance coverage for gender-affirming care to include things like facial hair removal and Adam’s apple reduction surgery, procedures currently considered cosmetic by insurers but seen as critical to the mental health of transitioning women.

Astonishing.