Last week, Tennessee became the eighth state to enact a ban on so-called "gender-affirming care" for minors, following in the recent footsteps of Mississippi and South Dakota.

The ban outlaws puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender reassignment surgery for individuals under the age of 18, highlighting the importance of treating co-occurring mental health issues instead. The bill goes into effect this summer, and minors who are currently taking medications prohibited under the new legislation will have until the end of March next year to cease taking them.

The state has additionally placed age restrictions on public drag shows to protect children from exposure to sexualized entertainment, becoming the first state to enforce such a law. As my audience knows, I’m a straight woman who grew up in the gay community and has spent countless hours surrounded by drag queens. How consenting adults choose to spend their leisure time is entirely their business; that said, no child should ever be exposed to these types of performances or events. In addition to shielding kids’ innocence, this legislation will protect them from being sucked into the cult that is gender ideology.

The devastating number of young people regretting transitioning continues to increase by the day. New research from Western Sydney University documents a female detransitioner’s regret after having a double mastectomy and recently becoming a mother.

As a teenager, after developing breasts and subsequently being sexually harassed by men, the young woman began identifying as male. At 18, she started taking testosterone; by 20, she had undergone a double mastectomy. Four years later, she detransitioned. She grieved the inability to breastfeed her baby after giving birth and wanted to raise awareness about the difficulties detransitioned women experience. She also spoke about the poor maternity care she encountered during her pregnancy because practitioners didn’t understand her situation or what detransitioning had entailed.

Some clinicians have suggested that breast implants are a solution if a woman later changes her mind about a transition-related mastectomy. Breast augmentation does not account for the loss of function that will likely occur from removing one’s breasts. This includes the inability to produce and extract milk for a newborn child.

Considering that girls as young as 12 are undergoing this procedure, I anticipate a huge uptick in the number of new mothers presenting with this issue in the future. This is what is at stake when activists argue against banning transition-related care for minors.