I am writing in response to the Nov. 14 guest column by Karen Bercovici entitled “We need to rethink ‘gender care’ for children.” I have a couple of questions. First, why does the Daily Hampshire Gazette keep printing opinion pieces challenging rights and medical care for transgender people? Everything that was said in Bercovici’s column has been said multiple times in other opinion pieces over the past couple of years in the Gazette. As to the Cass report, anyone interested can Google the controversy around that report. Transgender youth, adults, and elders exist and have always existed whether or not some people find that upsetting. Enough already. Second, why is the column writer and others so fixated on the very small group of transgender youth who seek gender affirming medical care? If the writer and others are concerned with the well-being of young people, maybe they should get involved in public health issues that are more seriously affecting young people such as depression, anxiety, poverty, food insecurity, houslessness, violence, and drug abuse. Trans adults and youth don’t represent a “‘gender identity agenda” as the writer states; they are human beings who are trying to live their lives in the best way they can. Stop trying to save trans youth from themselves, their parents, and the health professionals who are trying to assist them. As Tim Walz said so eloquently, “Mind your own damn business.”

Rebekah Perks

Florence