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‘The introduction of these policies is going to cost lives,’ said Amelia Newbert, managing director of Skipping Stones — referring to high rates of suicide ideation among transgender youth
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Apprehension is the word Amelia Newbert uses when describing how Alberta’s proposed policies concerning transgender youth have affected families.
Premier Danielle Smith last week announced several policy changes will be introduced in the fall — including halting access to puberty blockers for children aged 15 and under, mandating parental approval when a student wishes to change their name or pronoun, and when teachers plan to teach about sexual orientation sexuality or gender identity.
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Shortly after, the managing director of advocacy group Skipping Stones said the organization received an influx of calls from worried families.
The organization serves about 108 clients each month, including families of youths experiencing gender incongruence, by connecting them with resources such as community groups, mentors who’ve had similar experiences and sometimes income and housing support for those cut off from their social networks. Last week, Newbert said the group received twice the usual number of calls.
“We’ve certainly seen folks looking for a place they can sit and share in their anger and frustration and disappointment and sadness,” Newbert said. Many of them are former clients who have returned because the policies have caused renewed distress. Skipping Stones has now doubled its capacity to accommodate the growing number of clients.
Understanding has developed over time
The idea of a dissonance between a person’s assigned sex at birth and their gender identity is not new, said Corrine Mason, who teaches women’s and gender studies at Mount Royal University. Discussing this difference until recently was considered a taboo. Since it was kept hidden from their social groups, earlier generations lacked the vocabulary to articulate their experience.
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In the 1980s and 90s, movements around same-sex relationships spurred a culture of inclusivity. One of the movement’s biggest milestones was the case of Vriend v. Alberta in 1998, which categorized sexual orientation as a personal characteristic such as race, class, and gender.
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Further changes in legislation brought about a deeper understanding of similar experiences in institutional settings, including health care, schools and workplaces, said Andre Grace, former Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Studies at the University of Alberta. The shift encouraged people to express other complex experiences, such as gender incongruence.
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But the shame and bullying associated with these experiences persisted, resulting in higher levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide ideation among such youth. However, changes to the official language around transsexualism tried to alleviate the stigma and brought a renewed understanding of the issue, said Grace.
For instance, the publication of DSM–5 by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013 replaced the diagnosis “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” focusing on the distress caused by a split between one’s experience and their assigned gender instead of viewing their condition as a disorder.
The change helped create a system of care in Canada, which involved three stages — puberty suppression, gender-affirming hormones and gender-affirming surgery — as outlined in a position paper by the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS). Grace said these steps are well thought out, and accessing such care requires a team of specialists and includes a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a psychologist.
‘It’s devastating’: Many clients fear implications of proposed policies
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Alberta’s policies are an attempt to dismantle this process, which was the culmination of years if not decades of work in understanding and helping those experiencing gender incongruence, said Grace. One instance is the prohibition of puberty suppression medication for youth aged 15 and under.
These medications, which the Canadian Paediatric Society says have no side effects and are not irreversible, give youths some time as they explore their gender identity before developing irreversible characteristics of their assigned sex. Age 15 is too late, doctors have said, and it can increase the risk of suicide and self-harm, Dr. Sam Wong, medical director at the CPS said in an earlier interview.
Newbert, managing director of Skipping Stones, said many clients — who have been on waitlists for gender-affirming care for over a year — now fear the implications of the proposed policies. She said many families feel the spaces they once felt were safe “are being pulled away from them” in a matter of a week. “It’s devastating,” she said.
“The introduction of these policies is going to cost lives,” she said, referring to high rates of suicide ideation among transgender youth.
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Newbert highlighted the problem with another potential policy, which requires parental consent when a student wishes to change their name or pronoun in class. She said changing one’s pronoun is one way for a child to explore their gender identities before they come out to their parents, which in some cases, could have higher stakes due to prejudices around gender.
“Maybe the youth needs to take more time, or to take additional space before they come out to parents,” Newbert said.
And as for banning surgeries for youth under 17, such cases were more a rarity, Newbert added. No youth under 18 received bottom surgery in Alberta and 23 youth under 18 received top surgery.
“These are a dog whistle,” she said. But the policies, she added, are creating an environment of hostility and fear.
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