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Discrimination in CHIP Renewal is Hurtful to Transgender Youth. Shame on Our State Senators.
My name is Carrie Santoro, and I want to tell you about my son Finn.
Finn loves hiking and exploring nature.
His favorite holiday is Valentine’s Day, and he hates to see people in pain.
He is Student Council President, loves to read, and bemoans homework.
He has a little sister who would swear that he hung the moon and stars just for her.
Loving and nurturing other people is woven into the fabric of who he is. He is a ray of sunshine that makes our corner of the world a brighter place.
He is also transgender.
When Finn told us he was a boy at the end of the third grade, we supported him during his transition to live openly as male. The difference we saw in him was unbelievable. He did better in school, he was happier at home, he talked about his future, and he absolutely glowed, as the way he saw himself was finally reconciled with who everyone else saw on the outside.
Two years ago, we had our first appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist. The medical options available — which, make no mistake, can be life saving for trans youth — were largely not covered by insurance and incredibly cost prohibitive.
Luckily, federal legal protections expanded and eventually trickled down to states, and enough doctors, patients, and parents of patients successfully (and painfully) appealed insurance company denials of these services to set precedent that makes denials in Pennsylvania rare.
The state Senate’s recent passage of House Bill 1388, which renews the Children’s Health Insurance Program with a provision that discriminates against trans youth, threatens that progress.
Senator Don White, the author of the trans discrimination provision, chose to hold hostage 176,000 children insured through CHIP, fabricating a choice between them and care for my son, in a publicity stunt meant to turn people against each other for his own political gain.
For reasons lost on most, Senator White chose to politicize Finn’s existence to sow discord among those of us who have more in common than not, to demonize my son, and to turn other parents and, subsequently, their children against him.
As for the other 33 Republicans, including my state senator, Patrick Browne, and three Democrats who voted to advance a bill that says my son is less human and says appealing to the very worst of human nature for cheap political points is worth sacrificing him on the altar of your own ambition, shame on you.
Shame on you for stoking fear and prejudice and deciding to vote based on political expediency rather than public service or even facts.
Shame on you for being more concerned about re-election and intra-party political promotion than advocating for what is right and just.
Considering Pennsylvania legislators are the second highest paid in the country — topped only by California — I understand you have a lot to lose. But we have more.
You could have stood on solid moral ground and told your colleagues and constituents that the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association are just a few of the many organizations that agree gender-transition services are medically necessary for children like my son.
You could have eased their economic concerns by sharing studies like the 2015 analysis by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that show this care is cost-effective for insurance companies, as transgender people make up a small segment of the population and gender-affirming services actually reduce patients’ future health expenses.
You could have chosen to use your station as a source for change in public understanding of the trans community. You could have publicly called this amendment what it is — hateful, unnecessary, and absurd — and exposed the political motivations behind it. Instead, you continue to fail us. All of us.
Who will be Harrisburg’s next target for exclusions? Will they follow the national model of going after kids with asthma? Cancer? Perhaps cystic fibrosis? Where will they draw the line? The precedent set by this bill will not only affect transgender children nor will it only affect children insured by CHIP.
Bills like HB 1388 that include hateful and exclusionary provisions are not based in economics or medical science nor are they for the greater good. They are meant to call into question the humanity of children like my son and perpetuate the myth that they are less deserving of needed health care.
Our children deserve better. My son deserves better.
Carrie Santoro writes from Lehigh County.
