Your Teen Daughter Can Get Breast Implants, But My Kid Can’t Get Appropriate Healthcare?

Why intent, language, and advocacy matter in the fight against hypocrisy and unconstitutional control

Waking up to the headline “Breaking: Judge blocks Georgia’s ban on hormone therapy for transgender minors” felt like a little win this morning.

Around here, we celebrate little wins. A little inch closer to my son receiving the dignity in medical care that he is intended to have.

No, we don’t live in Georgia, but every single one of these rulings around the nation affects the overall progress of laws targeting transgender youth. They matter because words matter.

The verbiage these judges are using to intentionally and carefully set the precedent that all Americans, regardless of gender identity, sexuality, race, or religion, have the right to appropriate (and privately determined) healthcare matters a lot.

You see, these men and women are interpreting laws made when people owned other human beings, women had no fundamental rights, Native Americans were hindrances to property and so should be eliminated, or forcibly removed from their land, so it’s really wild to contemplate these judges trying to eke out some semblance of “rights” in documents written when only one type of person had rights.

I’m grateful, as the mom of gay and trans kids, that nearly half of the twenty states who have presented anti-trans bills have been met with a challenge in federal courts.

It’s good, but not great.

Every single state who has attempted this should be challenged.

First, let’s back up and look at the history of body modification among youth.

What are you talking about? you may ask. Body modification…. like piercings?

No, my friend. Like:

• breast augmentation (over 8,000 in one year performed on girls 13–19)
• rhinoplasty
• breast reduction
• otoplasty [ear pinning]
• liposuction
• and over 156,000 non-surgical procedures, including the injection of Botox.

…all of which are procedures that have been performed on teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19 years of age.

In America.

In 2013. FAR before any politician saw an opportunity to start a culture war by claiming to give a shit about children and their healthcare.

Want numbers more recent? In 2020, 3,200 girls between 13–19 years old had elective cosmetic breast augmentation, and another 4,700 had breast reductions.

So tell me why your daughter can get a boob job and mine can’t?

That’s really it.

That’s the post.

Children have been going under the knife to modify their bodies for decades, and the only reason anyone is pretending it’s an issue now, an issue that must be legislated, is because the kids who want that type of healthcare now? They’re transgender.

Let’s also point out that gender-affirming care for trans kids is life-saving care that can and does prevent self-harm, suicidal ideations, and actual suicide.

Brittneigh’s boob job wasn’t that important. She simply wanted it, and she got it.

Furthermore, even if other people outside Brittneigh’s family didn’t think breast implants were appropriate for a teenage girl, they still allowed her, her parents, and a surgeon to make the decision for what was medically best for her.

Not a politician. Not a judge. Her parents and her doctor.

Let’s stop pretending this is anything other than a witch hunt to target, harass, humiliate, and oppress trans kids and their parents.

Threatening legal action against a parent for getting their child healthcare… well that’s a reality I never thought I’d be living.

We’re not going to stop talking, and we’re not going to stop pointing out your hypocrisies. If this type of healthcare for minors is so concerning to you, why have you not moved to legislate against elective cosmetic procedures in cisgender kids?

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

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