Conservatives pushed for a study to ban trans health care. It backfired spectacularly.

In January 2023, Utah banned young people from receiving gender-affirming health care. Approved by Governor Spencer Cox, the ban was billed to be a suspension that could potentially be reversed once further research revealed more information about gender-affirming care’s long term effects, one that claimed to care deeply for children. What ended up happening, though, was that countless transgender youth were affected by the ban’s restrictions, which included gender-affirming surgery and “hormone treatments for minors who have not yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” according to NPR. The ACLU of Utah found it “catastrophic,” saying in a statement that:

“cutting off medical treatment supported by every major medical association in the United States, the bill compromises the health and well-being of adolescents with gender dysphoria. It ties the hands of doctors and parents by restricting access to the only evidence-based treatment available for this serious medical condition and impedes their ability to fulfill their professional obligations."

Despite the obvious detriments to children they claimed to care for, the ban remained. And the next step was actually doing this research.The results of it–some 1,000 pages worth issued by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services–were published this week, more than two years later. The biggest finding was something proponents of gender-affirming health care for transgender youth knew all along: that it saves lives.

The Salt Lake Tribune cites the report’s observation that “‘Overall, there were positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes’ as a result of gender-affirming care.” It’s also noteworthy, as the paper shares, that the report “conflicts with a review issued by the Trump administration.” This review, Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices, cited “behavioral therapy rather than broad gender-affirming medical care” for transgender youth with gender dysphoria, according to the Associated Press.

Counter to this, the Department of Health and Human Services wrote in the report, which can be read online, that “Hormonal transgender treatments are a treatment option intended to mitigate the distress among transgender individuals with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. When left untreated, individuals with gender dysphoria may experience psychological and social harms.” But the Department also stated that it “does not take a position on whether to lift the moratorium.”

Despite the “overall positivity” of the report as it related to gender-affirming health care, its pages upon pages of research, and the fact that it was commissioned by conservative politicians themselves–the original bill signed banning treatment “require[d] the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a systematic review of the medical evidence regarding hormonal transgender treatments and provide recommendations to the Legislature”--Republicans are choosing to remain unconvinced. Two Republican representatives even referred to the research as “weak evidence,” in the Tribune, adding that “the science isn’t there, the risks are real.”

As the Tribune shares, the report did say there was “‘an increase in some specific types of benign brain tumors,’” but it also showed that transgender youth faced higher incidents of “‘suicide, non-natural causes, and HIV/AIDS’” and that “‘patients that were seen at the gender clinic before the age of 18 had a lower risk of suicide compared to those referred as an adult.’”

Though the original bill stated that those “young people who had already been diagnosed with gender dysphoria before January 2023 were allowed to continue previously prescribed hormone treatments,” the Tribune shared, the moratorium will stand. It may even be some time before it’s formally challenged because some youth are still allowed to receive gender-affirming care under the ban. But the results of the study are there, and they speak for themselves.