The Far-Right In Connecticut

They started around 2008, 2009 and was in full form in 2011 when we passed the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill.

This photo here was taken minutes after the Senate pass the non-discrimination bill in 2011... the back story.

We were up in the Senate gallery watching the debate, it was after midnight when the vote was taken in the Capitol stairs in front of the Senate chambers. As we were getting ready to take this photo Peter Wolfgang the Executive Director Family Institute of Connecticut was coming down the stairs and saw us and when back upstairs. The FIC has opposed just about every pro-LGBTQ+ bill and backed every Republican LGBTQ+ bill.

So... The Hartford Courant's "Letter-to-the-editor"

Readers speak: Supporting the CT hospital choice to end pediatric gender care
Leslie Wolfgang, Director of Public Policy, Family Institute of Connecticut
Some Connecticut hospitals announced that they will no longer administer puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and genital surgeries to minors to treat a mental health problem – gender dysphoria. [Yale follows Connecticut Children’s in gutting pediatric gender care, July 25, 2025]

So called “gender affirming care” will go down in history as one of the greatest medical scandals of all time.  While prompted by a federal investigation, there has been growing evidence that these treatments were always driven by politics, not science.  Some Democrats have demanded answers, but even activists were beginning to acknowledge that prior assertions were grossly exaggerated.

For example, Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney during oral argument before the Supreme Court acknowledged that “there is no evidence in some—in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide.”  This is big news. The only possible excuse to rob children of their future fertility, and ability to experience sexual pleasure, or for the state of Connecticut to pay Hartford Healthcare to remove the breasts of young women as young as age 15 as a “treatment” for gender dysphoria, was that it prevented suicide. And this wasn’t true.  Other whoppers are that puberty blockers “cause no permanent damage” and that “no provider in Connecticut performs gender confirmation surgery on minors.” These are activist-driven assertions.

Of course she doesn't say that the cause of the suicidal ideations...

Negative Transgender-Related Media Messages Are Associated with Adverse Mental Health Outcomes in a Multistate Study of Transgender Adults

PUB Med NIH: National Library of Medicine

Jaclyn MW Hughto, David Pletta, Lily Gordon, Sean Cahill, Matthew J Mimiaga , Sari L Reisner

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which transgender people have observed negative transgender-related messages in the media and the relationship between negative media message exposure and the mental health of transgender people.

Conclusion: Exposure to negative media messages from multiple sources necessitates multilevel interventions to improve the mental health of transgender people and curb stigma at its source.

Of course she doesn't mention this!

Even politicians can discern that halting puberty is a recipe for increased social discomfort, retarded physical development and arrested maturity.  Planned Parenthood can prescribe cross-sex hormones during the first visit.  Elle Palmer told our legislators this spring that “gender affirming care” permanently masculinized her voice, caused pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, early onset osteoporosis, and an increased risk of sterility and did not provide the long term relief she was promised. What have we done to Connecticut’s children? Hospitals halting these procedures is a first step, but recovery from the reputational damage to our professional classes, including willing doctors and naïve legislators, will be slow to heal.

Then there was a rebuttal to her rant,

Opinion: You say ending gender care protects kids. I’m one of those kids—and you’re wrong.

By June Carpenter | An 18-year-old transgender woman from Connecticut

I read the July 27 opinion piece “Supporting the CT Hospital’s Choice to End Pediatric Gender Care” with a pit in my stomach. The author praised Connecticut hospitals for winding down care for trans youth, calling it a courageous act of protection. But as an 18-year-old transgender woman who lost care, I can tell you: this is not courageous. It’s dangerous.

I came out at 14, after years of struggling with anxiety and depression I didn’t have words for. When I finally told my parents I was trans, they were scared—but supportive. With the guidance of our doctor, I was referred to a gender-affirming care program that gave me what every teenager deserves: a chance to feel like myself, and to build a future.

That care wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t political. It was thoughtful, compassionate, and evidence-based. And it quite literally saved my life.

The decision to dismantle pediatric gender care in Connecticut doesn’t protect trans youth—it isolates us. It tells us that our identities are too controversial to treat, and that our existence is something the state can quietly turn away from. And when adults cheer that on in print, it sends a brutal message: that we don’t matter.

Gender-affirming care didn’t make me trans. It helped me survive being trans in a world that often treats us like a problem to be solved.

I’m lucky. I am close to 19, when I can still access my medications—for now. But the 14-year-old version of me? She wouldn’t have made it in this political climate. Not with appointments canceled. Not with doctors forced to abandon patients. Not with strangers debating whether she deserved to grow up.

The author of the op-ed claims this is about “letting kids grow up.” But kids like me can’t grow up if we’re denied the care that makes growing up possible. Puberty blockers and hormone therapy are not radical. They’re widely supported by every major medical association and provided with careful, informed consent. What’s radical is denying that care based on politics or pressure from outside the state.

To those who claim to care about children, I ask this: are you listening to us?

Listen to the Connecticut teenagers who are watching the floor fall out from under them. Listen to the families being forced to search out-of-state for care that used to be accessible here at home. Listen to the young people who are saying, over and over again, that gender-affirming care is not a threat to our lives—it’s what keeps us alive.

I am proud of who I am. I am proud of the journey I’ve taken to get here. But no child should have to fight this hard to be seen. If you truly care about protecting youth, fight for a state where transgender kids can feel safe, affirmed, and supported—not pushed aside in the name of someone else’s fear.