President Biden’s administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.”
The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, “Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care.” The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including:
“‘Top’ surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;” and “‘Bottom’ surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures.” New measures include an effort by the Homeland Security Department to make airport screenings more gender-neutral and a host of new educational resources on gender-affirming care for kids and teens after several Republican governors placed limits on accessing such information.
The State Department will also be rolling out an option for people to select ‘X’ as a gender on their passports beginning on April 11. To support this, the White House said in a fact sheet, the government is ‘working closely with air carriers in the US to ‘promote the use and acceptance of the ‘X’ passport option.
United Airlines and American Airlines already allow passengers to pick ‘X’ as their gender. A third airline will roll it out this fall, the White House said. The Transportation Security Administration will overhaul ‘the current, gender-based system’ with ‘more accurate technology’ to screen travelers later this year to improve ‘the customer experience of transgender travelers who have previously been required to undergo additional screening due to alarms in sensitive areas.’
