In 2023, the NM legislature and Governor signed law HB7, which requires that school districts must not “interfere” in any way with children accessing transgender (and abortion) procedures. Despite what some lawmakers have said about this law, there is no requirement for parental notification and there are no age restrictions for children to access these procedures. Schools can be fined $5,000 per instance if teachers or nurses “interfere” by talking to children's parents about their transgender procedures.
Combine this law with the push for school-based health centers statewide, and the situation is indeed dire for parents who want to be informed about their children’s transgender treatment. Although parents must provide consent for their children to receive painkillers, school based health centers are not required to obtain parental consent for treatment related to transgender care. This is real and it is the law here in New Mexico.
The "gender affirming care" that our state government wants to make sure kids have access to includes cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers (such as Lupron, which is used to chemically castrate sex offenders), and surgeries (wherein healthy body parts are permanently removed or disfigured). The harmful effects of “gender affirming” care cannot be reversed. Known risks of these medical treatments include sterility, heart problems, blood clots, hormone-dependent cancers, sexual dysfunction, and a lifetime of remorse.
Most kids who experience gender confusion suffer from anxiety, depression, trauma, learning problems, and/or social problems that make them have a hard time fitting in. They see transgenderism as a way out of their mental distress. But it doesn't work that way.
Countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were far ahead of the USA in affirming gender transition for youths. These countries have now backtracked because they learned that gender affirmation for children can do more harm than good. According to Finland’s top pediatric gender specialist, Dr Riitakerttu Kaltiala, 4 out of 5 kids grow out of their gender confusion.
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service recently commissioned an independent review of all evidence related to gender affirming care. The results were published in the comprehensive 388-page Cass Review, which found that gender affirming care does not reduce the risk of suicide. Although there may be an initial "honeymoon" period when gender affirming care is undertaken, in the long run it does not cure the underlying mental health issues.
A few weeks ago, Chloe Cole was one of six detransitioners who spoke in Santa Fe to share the harms she experienced through transgender treatment. 20-year-old Chloe began taking cross sex hormones and puberty blockers at age 13. At age 15, her healthy breasts were removed in a double mastectomy. Only later did Chloe realize that this was all a huge mistake stemming from sexual trauma in middle school. She now embraces her womanhood, but she will never be able to get back what was taken from her. She suffers from sexual dysfunction and she will never be able to breastfeed if she is able to have children of her own.
Like Chloe, the lives of the other five detransitioners shared the common thread of trauma and abuse. The Detrans Reddit group of over 55,000 members shows that detransitioners aren’t as rare as we are led to believe. It is impossible to know how many others are suffering the same fate, because most will not return to the same doctor who harmed them and no tracking mechanism is being used to determine rates of detransition.
These issues are important. And parents deserve to know the impact of the laws that have been passed by our legislators and Governor.
Sarah Smith is co-leader of the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance (non-partisan statewide grassroots coalition) and Vice Chair of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action in Las Cruces. Sarah is also a homeschooling mother of two teens, natural healthcare practitioner, and former NASA aerospace engineer.
