Gender-affirming care has a long history in the US – and not just for transgender people

When politicians today refer to gender-affirming care as new, "untested" or "experimental," they ignore the long history of transgender medicine in the United States… 

It's been nearly 60 years since the first transgender medical clinic opened in the U.S., and 47 years since Rhoda started her hormone therapy. Understanding the history of these treatments in the U.S. can be a helpful guide for citizens and legislators in a year when a record number of bills in statehouses target the rights of transgender people… 

I also learned that gender-affirming hormone therapies have been prescribed to cisgender youths for generations – despite what contemporary politicians may think. Disability scholar Eli Clare has written of the history and continued practice of prescribing hormones to boys who are too short and girls who are too tall for what is considered a "normal" range for their gender. Because of binary gender norms that celebrate height in men and smallness in women, doctors, parents and ethicists have approved the use of hormonal therapies to make children conform to these gender stereotypes since at least the 1940s…

https://theconversation.com/gender-affirming-care-has-a-long-history-in-the-us-and-not-just-for-transgender-people-201752