Backlash to transgender health care isn’t new − but faulty science used to justify it has changed over time
In the past century, there have been three waves of opposition to transgenderhealth care. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they cracked down on transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe. In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine led to the closure of the most well-respected clinics in the United States. And since 2021, when Arkansas became the first U.S. state among now at least 21 other states banning gender-affirming care for minors, we have been living in a third wave. In my work as a scholar of transgender history, I study the long history of gender-affirming care in the U.S., which has been practiced since at […]