Recently, The Hill published an op-ed purporting to be a measured critique of gender-affirming care for youth. In reality, it was a dangerous and misinformed piece of ideological propaganda cloaked in the language of academic concern and propped up by debunked claims and bad faith arguments.

Riffer, who has studied censorship, gender regulation, and the legislative targeting of LGBTQIA+ communities across the U.S., will say plainly: This is not a debate about evidence. It is a campaign to restrict bodily autonomy, silence trans people, and legislate gender conformity through selective enforcement and moral panic. Parra, as a researcher and clinician focused on health equity at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, finds their argument extremely harmful; dehumanizing patient needs while trying to uplift the voices of practitioners who already hold power over them.

The “researchers” are repeating talking points from conservative legal advocacy groups like Do No Harm and the American Principles Project—groups that have long pushed disinformation about trans people and gender-affirming care. Their article cites no peer-reviewed research, relies on anecdotal detransition narratives, and gestures toward European policy shifts without acknowledging the overwhelming global consensus among medical and psychological experts that gender-affirming care is necessary, evidence-based, and lifesaving.

It’s telling that the op-ed begins not with data but with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a ruling that did not affirm or reject the medical efficacy of gender-affirming care but simply allowed Tennessee’s ban to go into effect while litigation continues. Citing a court’s procedural decision as scientific evidence is not how responsible researchers argue. It is how ideologues launder bigotry through the language of policy.

The authors also misrepresent the Cass Review, a report from the U.K. that has been seized upon by anti-trans activists despite its limited scope and heavy methodological critique from the broader medical community. Rather than engage with the nuance or ongoing debate around the Cass Review’s findings, they use it as a rhetorical trick, ignoring the hundreds of studies, clinical guidelines, and lived experiences that support trans youth in accessing care that aligns with their identity and reduces suicidality, depression, and anxiety.

This is part of a broader pattern Riffer has documented in recent state legislation: vague moralistic framing, symbolic enforcement mechanisms, and a steady reframing of queerness itself as inherently obscene or dangerous. In the last year, over three dozen anti-drag and anti-trans bills have been introduced across the U.S., many of them using model language shared by conservative networks. These laws do not solve problems; they construct problems to justify the suppression of queer life.

The authors of the op-ed make sweeping claims about trauma and gender identity, suggesting that trans youth are simply confused victims of sexual violence or “pornified culture.” This argument is not only offensive; it is unsupported by clinical research. In fact, denying gender-affirming care has been shown to worsen outcomes for trans youth, while access to care improves mental health, social functioning, and long-term stability. If the authors were truly concerned about trauma, they would advocate for greater mental health access, LGBTQIA+-inclusive education, and protection from discrimination, not the withdrawal of care that affirms identity and promotes safety.

Gender-affirming care treats transgender people and patients as autonomous human beings. It is important to note that youth under the age of 18 are not allowed to engage in gender-affirming surgeries, except for top surgery, which requires a comprehensive mental health evaluation by a licensed clinician that confirms gender dysphoria and rules out any other psychological or social problems that could be contributing to the patients’ presenting problems. Contrary to the comments from the op-ed, the mental health assessment does consider if trauma, among many other diagnoses and factors, could inhibit the patient’s judgment.

It is deeply concerning that some of the authors run academic initiatives at Northwestern that claim to center ethics and trauma-informed research, while simultaneously publishing arguments that ignore both the medical consensus and the standards of responsible scholarship. When students at a top university parrot talking points designed by legal advocacy groups working to criminalize gender variance, it is not a sign of intellectual bravery; it is a sign that we must do more to teach research ethics, evidence-based reasoning, and the difference between dissent and disinformation.

Trans youth are not a trend. They are people worthy of autonomy, safety, and care. And the rest of us have a responsibility to speak the truth plainly: These laws, and the narratives that justify them, are not about health. They are about control.

We’ve seen this before. The tactics have evolved, but the intent remains the same: to police gender and enforce a narrow vision of normativity at the expense of the most vulnerable. We should call it what it is and reject it.

Andie Riffer is a doctoral graduate in social work and policy. Shawn E. Parra is a social worker and doctoral candidate.