Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Study Finds That Trans People Taking Testosterone Can Still Get Pregnant
Many transgender men and other gender-diverse people opt to take testosterone to bring about male secondary sex characteristics, such as a deeper voice and thicker body and facial hair, and to suppress female characteristics, such as menstruation. While taking this hormone therapy, a person may no longer get their period, however, they may still ovulate and therefore could potentially get pregnant, a new study finds. The small study included 52 transmasculine people. (Cooke, 2/22)
In news concerning the death of a trans student in Oklahoma —
The death of a 16-year-old nonbinary high school student in Oklahoma whose family says was bullied has renewed scrutiny of anti-trans polices and political rhetoric over gender identity. ... In the days since news of Benedict’s death became public, calls from Oklahoma to a national crisis hotline for LGBTQ+ youths have spiked by more than 500%, said Lance Preston, the founder and director of the Indiana-based Rainbow Youth Project USA, a group that aims to improve the safety and wellness of LGBTQ+ young people. (Murphy, 2/23)
As news broke this week about the death of 16-year-old nonbinary student Nex Benedict, who died after a fight in a school bathroom, crisis calls to an Oklahoma LGBTQ+ support organization more than quadrupled — with 69 percent of callers referencing Benedict. (Sosin and Nittle, 2/22)
On other trans and reproductive health-related matters —
“I’m really sick of you doing that.” Jessie Buckley sighed, shifting a curtain of dark red hair from her face. Inside a small, windowless room on the University of Maryland’s campus in College Park, she glanced across the table at Katie Aveni, a speech-language pathology master’s student, who nodded encouragingly. (Roberts, 2/22)
A bill before Mississippi lawmakers might allow incarcerated people to sue jails and prisons if they encounter inmates from the opposite sex, such as those who are transgender, in restrooms or changing areas. State lawmakers advanced the proposal out of a House committee Thursday. It would require inmate restrooms, changing rooms and sleeping quarters in correctional facilities to be designated for use only by members of one sex. If prisoners encounter someone of the opposite sex in any of those areas, they could sue the prison under the proposal. (Goldberg, 2/23)
The country’s central domestic violence hotline received a major spike in calls from teens about reproductive coercion in the year following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. New data from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NVDH), also known as The Hotline, shows that 24 13- to 17-year-olds called about reproductive coercion in the year before June 2022; in the next year, that number rose to 44. (Gerson, 2/22)
