CNN
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At least 20 states have enacted policies restricting health care for transgender youth, and the decline in gender-affirming treatment clinics in those states has significantly increased the average travel time to health care providers, according to a new report. study.
Nearly half of adolescents now live more than an hour away from the nearest gender-care clinic, almost double the share before restrictions were introduced. And more than a quarter of her children live at least a full day’s drive, or at least an eight-hour round trip, from the nearest surgical clinic.
Overall, the average travel time to gender positivity care clinics doubled from about 30 minutes to an hour, with the greatest increases for people living in Florida, Texas, and Utah, the researchers found.
“What if the average person had an extra hour to travel to their primary care doctor? “It will have an immediate and detrimental effect on the well-being of these young people.”
Major Medical Associations – Including American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry – Agree that gender-affirming care is important clinically relevant For both children and adults, access to this care can have significant mental health benefits.
“For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirmation care is critical to their overall health and well-being.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Population Affairs Say. Delayed care can exacerbate a child’s stressors and health problems.
But state-level restrictions will exacerbate the challenge for a system already strained to meet patient needs, experts say.
For the study, researchers at the University of Michigan created a directory of clinics that publicly advertised as offering gender-affirming medical care to patients under the age of 18, including puberty-suppressing drugs and hormones.
They identified a total of 271 gender clinics serving an estimated 300,000 transgender youth aged 13 to 17 nationwide. But more than a quarter of these clinics, and more than 89,000 transgender youth, are in states with restrictions on gender-affirming care.
“There are a small but growing number of medical, surgical, and mental health professionals providing this care, so there has always been a waiting list. I’ve seen waiting lists grow by months, and in some cases it can take a year or more to see a specialist,” said Scott Hadland, Ph.D., director of adolescent medicine at the Mass General for Children.
“The pressure on remaining clinicians and clinics is increasing.”
Increased travel time to gender-positive care rapidly expands its ramifications. These long distances create new challenges as children have to miss more schools and the adults they are with have to miss work, and each trip creates new risks of interruptions in care.
“What is unique here is that gender-affirming care for young people involves young people and their entire families. When you think about these barriers to access, it hinders access to care not just for young people, but for whole families,” Hadland said.
And gender-affirming care involves an interdisciplinary approach where regular and consistent appointments are key.
“These distances don’t grow with just one appointment, but with many appointments if gender-affirming care is in place,” he says.
Telemedicine can help in some ways, but it still has limitations, Parent said. For example, if a patient needs to have their hormones checked, it’s not as simple as pricking a finger at home and sending the data to a healthcare provider.
Experts say the negative impact is clear for the thousands of people who need these long in-person trips.
“This means[transgender youth]cannot access potentially life-changing services,” Hadland said.
CNN’s Jen Christensen contributed to this report
