Listen Carefully to the Youth

With tears in my eyes, I burst out of the classroom, seeking refuge from my teacher’s and classmates’ endless verbal battering of me. We were mired in a debate about whether the canon of religious music should be omitted from public school choral groups’ repertoires to “appease” students who felt uncomfortable with such music. The discussion was framed with a particular implication—that because of a squeaky and unreasonable minority, the majority of students were deprived of critical singing opportunities.

I argued that religious songs should not be part of a public-school concert. Years of personal experience with antisemitism choked my voice as I attempted to express my dissent. My desperate efforts were not adequate to make them understand that I felt that the discussion was twisted.  For me, the questions were: Should the feelings of students who feel uncomfortable with religious music be ignored? Was music more important than people? My 53-year-old self wants to time travel to give 12-year-old Pam a hug.

Experiences like these have spurred me to decide to not put principle above people. Recently, I consulted with a parent of a trans child living in a state where legislators’ ignorance overrode medical knowledge to make gender affirming care for youth illegal. As the parent and I spoke, I smiled, watching the child dance freely in the background. At work I have the privilege of providing gender affirming health care. Trans youth are infuriated when they are told that their experience of themselves as gender diverse people is wrong. Their mental and emotional health is predicated on receiving gender affirming healthcare in a supportive environment. My team provides hope to patients and their families. To prescribe medication that can help someone’s external body match their internal self is amazing and humbling.

Politicians ban gender affirming care because they say they worry that adolescents are insufficiently mature to undertake such major decisions. They express concern about theoretical people who might regret decisions made in adolescence. The question I want to pose to these politicians is: How can you ignore children, like this child in front of me, who are struggling and whose lives will be transformed for the better with this care?

Young Pam and Doctor Pam want to scream, “Where is your empathy? Listen to the young people, especially those who do not fit into the dominant paradigm. Give them love so they can bloom.”

Pamela Adelstein
Newton, Massachusetts