Senators The Republicans intend to file “shortly” a proposed law aimed at prohibiting minors from making a gender transition, franceinfo learned on Tuesday March 19, confirming information from the Point. The text is based on a report from the LR group in the Senate on the subject of the “transidentification of minors”, submitted Monday to the lower house and consulted by franceinfo.
Launched in May against the “increasing increase in demands” transition among minors, the Senate working group interviewed 67 people (health professionals, association leaders, children, parents, etc.). It makes 16 recommendations concerning the medical and psychological care of children and adolescents. “in gender questioning”.
Minority children, but more and more numerous
According to international studies, between 1.2% and 2.7% of children and adolescents identify as transgender, reports the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). There is no count of transition requests among minors in France, but all stakeholders agree that, although very rare, they are on the rise. In 2020, just under 9,000 people in France were beneficiaries of a long-term condition for transidentity (a status giving the right to reimbursement for certain care), of which only 294 were minors, recalls a report from the General Inspectorate social affairs.
Today, a minor who is diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”, that is to say a distress linked to the inadequacy between the gender felt and their birth sex, can be prescribed gender blockers. puberty in preadolescence, then, from the age of 16, feminizing or masculinizing hormonal treatments. Reassignment surgeries are only accessible from the age of 18, with the exception of torsoplasty – the transformation of the female chest into a male torso – which can, in certain cases, be authorized for adolescents. All of these procedures are carried out with the parents’ agreement, and after discussing them with the young patient and the entire medical team. France has 18 services specializing in supporting people in transition.
Young trans people who embark on a medical path are nevertheless a minority, according to the figures reported by the department heads interviewed by the working group. Their transition mainly takes place in the social sphere (in the family, at school, etc.), by adopting a gender expression different from the gender of birth (change of first name, pronouns, hairstyle, clothing style). …). At school, a circular has been issued to regulate, in 2021, the way in which educational staff must support transgender students. This “Blanquer circular” authorizes in particular the use, in internal documents and in daily practice, of a first name used different from that of civil status, provided that the parents have given their consent.
The risk of regrets, main and contested argument
In their report, LR elected officials recommend returning to both the medical and social aspects of gender transitions for minors. On the first level, the senators believe that France should ban all medical procedures linked to transidentity – puberty blockers, hormonal treatments and reassignment surgeries – before the age of 18. The report criticizes the treatment of the young people concerned in hospital and the emphasis placed on “self-determination”. “Before 18, consent is not the same as in adulthood and children risk making sometimes irreversible decisions, which some regret later”estimates Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, who led this working group, summarizing with the Figaro the point of view of the report.
“The fact that some people detransition and can express regret is very rare”nevertheless reminds franceinfo Claire Vandendriessche, co-president of the Trans Health Network, an association which brings together trans people, associations and health professionals. It refers to a study published by the journal Pediatrics in 2022 on more than 300 young transgender Americans and who observed that after five years, only 2.5% of them ultimately identified as cisgender.
“In the same way that the fact that some women regret having had an abortion does not justify banning abortion, the fact that regret may exist among people who have transitioned does not justify banning transitions”argues the one who was herself interviewed by the senatorial working group.
“It’s a shocking report which prepares a law that will probably be the most transphobic in Europe.”
Claire Vandendriessche, co-president of the Trans Health Networkat franceinfo
The rapporteurs are also concerned about the lack of scientific studies concerning the side effects generated by the treatments offered to minors or their reversibility. “Puberty blockers have been used since the 1970s to treat early puberty, and it has never seemed to be a problem”replica Claire Vandendriessche.
A mental health issue
“This must be done in a supervised manner, with the help of trained doctors”agrees Maryse Rizza, president of the Grandir trans association, which brings together parents of transgender children. “But banning puberty blockers, when some children express transgender identity from the age of 3, is like condemning adolescents to death”, she warns; transgender people are more exposed to the risk of suicidal ideas and behavior, recalls the High Authority of Health. Maryse Rizza encourages, on the contrary, to increase the number of specialized consultation centers, as waiting times for a first appointment often exceed a year.
The senators insist on the importance of proposing “first intention” psychiatric care for minors who declare themselves to be trans and who present with disorders such as autism or ADHD (attention disorders), postponing the consultation for gender dysphoria to a second stage.
A recommendation that “brings transidentity back into the field of mental illness”estimated Claire Vandendriessche, while she gradually came out in the international classifications. The association manager also emphasizes that, for a certain number of young people, “their psychological disorders are linked to the experience of transphobia”and not to their gender identity per se, and therefore wishes that they can “to be followed on several levels at the same time”. She also fears that by encouraging psychiatric monitoring of trans minors without training health professionals, some of them will practice conversion therapy, banned in France since January 2022.
A request to go back to school
The LR senators’ report goes beyond medical questions: it also recommends unraveling the “Blanquer circular”, intended to better support transgender students at school. Elected officials accuse this text of having tipped the educational institution into the camp of what they consider to be “trans ideology”. They demand to prohibit the intervention in the educational establishments of associations “which do not respect the principle of neutrality”and want National Education to set up monitoring of “the content of school textbooks (…) concerning sexual identity”. They require that administrative documents, both in and out of school, “can only include the mention of the male or female sex”.
Dispositions “shameful”protests Maryse Rizza, who ensures that the Blanquer circular “made it possible to establish a safety zone for our children”. She also fears that by preventing LGBT+ associations from intervening in schools, discrimination against trans students will increase. Claire Vandendriessche believes that the report actually calls for “the erasure of trans children and adolescents”even when “they have been expressing a genre that has been affirmed for years”.
She demands that scientific authorities such as the National Consultative Ethics Committee or the High Authority of Health pronounce on the care of transgender people before elected officials take up these questions, fearing that the LR senators’ report will provoke “loads of transphobic insults on social networks which will fall on trans minors”. A roadmap from the HAS is precisely expected in the “next months”Franceinfo learned from it.