Across the country, at least 22 states have passed legislation banning gender-affirming care for certain segments of their population. While in most instances the target of the bans has been youth (13-17 year-olds), Idaho legislators are trying to stop the use of public funds to pay for gender-affirming care for adults who are either state employees or Medicaid recipients. What is gender-affirming care and why does this legislation matter? Let’s use sociology to help us better understand this issue.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), gender-affirming care refers to a “single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioral or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity.” Gender identity is defined as an individual’s inner sense of identification of being masculine or feminine. People develop their own gender identity based on interactions and their social environment. All societies have gender norms, behaviors, or traits that society attributes to a particular sex, but not everyone’s inner sense of who they are matches perfectly with the assumed gender norms in their society. For example, in Western society, traditional femininity, behaviors, and traits associated with women, has expected women to be timid, sensitive, accepting, and passive. On the other hand, traditional masculinity, behaviors, and traits associated with men, has expected men to be tough, aggressive, and stoic. Yet, we know that not all women are timid, and not all men are aggressive. Gender-affirming care is designed to help those who experience an incongruence between how they see themselves and how they are perceived by society.
The segment of society most impacted by gender-affirming care legislation includes members of the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community. Focusing specifically on people who are transgender, a person who identifies with a gender different from their biological sex, 2022 research indicated that 0.5 percent of adults in the U.S. are transgender. That comes out to about 1.3 million people out of a total population of 334 million. The number of youth is even smaller, with 300,000 identifying as transgender. Regardless of the numbers, many people who are transgender seek gender-affirming care to help align themselves physically and emotionally with how they perceive themselves.
