Transgender and gender-diverse youth caught in the intersection of policy making, politics, gender-affirming care, and feminist discourse

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores how presuppositions and assumptions can affect policy making, by investigating if anti-trans and 'gender critical' rhetoric may have affected the now reversed NHS policy ‘Amendments to service specification for gender identity development service for children and adolescents’ which directly influenced the still in use Karolinska University Hospital policy, ‘Policyförändring gällande hormonell behandling till minderåriga patienter med könsdysfori inom Tema Barn’. By using the Foucauldian inspired poststructural WPR policy analysis method by Bacchi and Goodwin, it was uncovered that the underlying assumptions and presuppositions of the hegemonic ‘truths’ the representation of the problem relied on, assumed dominance through an increase of anti-transgender and anti-gender-diverse rhetoric in political and public debates, and in media. A monumental aspect of this is the Bell v Tavistock case and its now overturned first ruling, which was used to legitimise anti-transgender and anti-gender-diverse policies and politics. The point of departure for these ‘truths’ is the publication of The Transexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) by Janice Raymond, which inspired TERFs, as well as far-right politicians, who echo the intention to limit gender-affirming treatments, and the centres where they are performed, in order to morally mandate it out of existence.