Transgender Minors and the Right to Care

Arguments for the pausing or banning of gender-affirming care for transgender minors have often relied on concerns around the uncertainty of the evidence for benefits of intervention. However, tying the right of transgender minors to a societal evaluation of the benefits of that care makes an incorrect value judgement about what it means to live life as a transgender person, imposes an impractical standard of evidence, and treats care for transgender minors as somehow exceptional when it has not been demonstrated to be. Transgender minors have an ethical right to continued access to care while research is conducted.