When Shame Becomes Law: How Misinformation and Projection Are Harming Youth (and all of us)

Kimi Floyd Reisch
Jul 13
7 min read

a written sermon By Rev. Dr. Kimi Floyd Reisch, Master of Divinity and Doctor of Theology Shame: Our National Inheritance

Not all shame is the same.

There’s the kind that makes you blush, a mistake like a spilled cup, a misstep like forgetting a person's name, or an awkward moment when you misunderstand someone and they correct you. And then there’s the kind that sinks into your bones, which we have inherited, institutionalized, and imposed upon each other. This is the kind of shame I grew up with. The kind churches handed out like communion wafers: if you don’t pray hard enough, if you don’t change, if you’re different, if you’re queer, then the fault must be yours.

For generations, this type of shame has been used as a weapon, especially against girls, women, and LGBTI+ people who do not fit well under patriarchal systems.

You know the story. A teenage girl gets pregnant in church, and suddenly she becomes the symbol of moral failure. She’s brought before the elders, asked to confess, to repent. The boy? The man? The institution that failed her? They’re nowhere to be found. Sometimes she’s forced to marry her abuser. Sometimes she has to carry the shame of a whole congregation in her belly.

We’ve all seen it. Some of us were that girl.

And now? Now that shame is being dumped on the backs of transgender girls and young women.

A New Generation of Scapegoats

All girls just want to belong. Some want to run on the track team. They want to feel the wind in their hair. They want to be part of something. They want to live. Sound familiar?

But the desire shared by many children has been redirected as a national threat on one small group of girls. Their identities are debated on news shows. Their bodies are legislated in statehouses. Their care is banned by people who admit they don’t understand it.

And while those heightening this focus claim they’re protecting children and fairness, what they’re doing is punishing children because of shame, not science, and they are ignoring the truth and misleading the public. Fewer than 10 athletes of the 510,000 athletes in the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) are transgender and not all of those are transgender women. There are about 150,000 transgender girls under the age of eighteen in the United States. Approximately 60 million youth compete in sports in this country each year. For those who struggle with math, that means that on the college level, 0.0011764 of all people competing are transgender men or women. On the junior high and high school level, where an average of 39% of youth participate in organized sports, 0.09749 percent of all youth are transgender boys or girls. We are scapegoating an entire generation of transgender and nonbinary girls and young women for a made-up problem that is not even represented by a full percentage point.

The Truth About Gender-Affirming Care

Let’s get this straight: Gender-affirming care is not new, dangerous, or experimental.

For example, puberty blockers have been used safely for decades to treat children with precocious puberty and other hormone conditions. When prescribed to transgender youth, they do not cause permanent changes, they simply delay puberty to allow youth and their families time to make informed decisions in consultation with medical professionals just like they have for numerous other conditions (Mayo Clinic).

What’s more, surgical interventions in affirming care for minors are extremely rare. According to a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health study, fewer than 0.01% of transgender youth undergo gender-affirming surgeries before age 18, about 30 out of every 300,000 transgender youth (Harvard Public Health).

Here’s what’s often left out of the rhetoric you hear in the media: the great majority of chest reduction surgeries on minors are performed on cisgender boys. In 2019, 146 out of 151 gender-affirming chest surgeries on minors were on cisgender males with gynecomastia, not trans youth (Harvard).

So why are only trans kids being banned from accessing this care?

Because the bans aren’t about protecting children. They’re about protecting norms, power, and comfort. They’re rooted in fear and projection, in shame, not truth.

Circular Logic and Manufactured Urgency

Opponents of gender-affirming care claim they’re responding to a crisis of children being rushed into medical decisions. But the truth is, their bans have created the very urgency they now condemn.

When puberty blockers are banned, youth lose the ability to delay physical changes, forcing them and their families into faster, more permanent decisions. And then lawmakers use those decisions as evidence that trans youth are being rushed.

This is circular logic that creates a cycle of misinformation and harm.

Ban access to safe, reversible treatments(e.g., puberty blockers, affirming counseling)
↓
Youth feel pressure to act quickly(without time to explore or delay puberty)
↓
Families make faster, higher-stakes choices(such as considering surgical intervention earlier)
↓
Blame families for those choices(claiming they’re rushing care or being reckless)
↓
Use that blame to justify more bans(further limiting care and increasing harm)
⤴️ (Back to Step 1)

Meanwhile, cisgender youth continue to access the same procedures freely.

Breast implants for teen models and cheerleaders? Allowed.
Chest surgery for cisgender boys with breast growth? Covered by insurance.
Hormonal interventions for athletic performance? Encouraged.

But trans youth asking for puberty blockers?Criminalized.

Let’s call it what it is: a double standard built on stigma and shame, not medical or scientific research.

The Fifth-Place Finisher and the Politics of Projection

I am sure you have all seen the emotional stories being weaponized to support the bans, including a very public back-and-forth between a former swimmer and others where swimmer, a fifth-place finisher in a swim meet blames another swimmer, a trans girl, for her own loss, and uses that loss as a political weapon even though the other swimmer, the one being shamed-blamed, tied with her for fifth place. Neither of them won the race.

Fairness in sports has never looked like bullying someone out of a pool. Fairness has never meant forcing kids to be who they are not in order to participate In fact, this type of discrimination is why so many people who are not white drown, because bigotry and misinformation kept them out of the pool.

This isn’t about sports.It’s about power.And it’s about shame.

Because we’ve created a country where we tell children they’re exceptional, and when they discover they’re just like everyone else, when they end up in fifth place, they react by scapegoating those who are already vulnerable because they fail to accept the simple truth that they lost the race.

Trans girls are just the newest target in a long line of scapegoats, and this 5th-place finisher is just other woman who have historically jumped on to shame another woman because that allows her to keep feeling like she is better, that she is exceptional. Mary the eternal virgin is lifted as an unattainable example, Mary the supporter who dares walk with the men is called a whore by other women and used as the example of how not to live. In anti-racism circles, they even have a term for the Anita Bryants that always show up to oppose restoration of dignity for others because they have only learned how to center their own spiritual underdevelopment, not how to walk the world in love and joy.

This is more than a policy failure. This is a spiritual crisis.

We’ve built a nation that legislates shame, instead of trust, dignity, or healing. And we’ve forgotten what it means to care for each other in community.

In multiple ancient teachings including the Christian scriptures, we are reminded that no one stands outside the sacred circle. There are no divine mistakes. There are no disposable people. There is only love.

And in those sacred texts, we find stories like the woman at the well. She came alone in the heat of the day because her community had shamed her. But Jesus didn’t shame her. He saw her. He spoke to her, and then he offered her water, not because she was perfect, but because she was thirsty.

That is what we are called to do now. To offer water and to build communal trust again, not to keep legislating shame.

Before We Pass Laws Banning Affirming Care...

we should seek to understand what we are actually banning, and we should consider what is not being limited? If your 15-year-old cisgender daughter wants breast implants to feel more confident on the cheer squad, would you consider it?

If your 12-year-old cisgender son grows breasts during puberty and it causes him deep distress, would you seek medical advice and schedule to have them removed?

If your 17-year old cisgender son wants to model, act, or compete in sports, and that requires changing their face or their body using nose jobs and other surgeries, would you stand in their way or would you support them?

Breast implants in cisgender girls is affirming care.

Chest reduction in cisgender boys is affirming care.

In each of these cases, the laws that ban families with transgender children accessing these forms of affirming care still allow parents, doctors, and youth to make informed decisions for cisgender youth.

Now ask yourself: why is that acceptable for some youth, and not for others to make similar informed medical decisions?

The difference is not the procedure. It’s who we think deserves to access it.

Transgender youth are not a threat. They are not confused. They are not political pawns.

They are children trying to live in a world filled with adults who have made their existence a problem to be solved.

And we need to stop letting the fake stories of those seeking to ban them or to harm them to justify bias and judgment. Instead, let's build a better story. Let us build a world where no child has to apologize for being. Let us reject the weaponized shame and create communities grounded in care, honesty, and love.

And most of all, let us stop crucifying children to satisfy the fears of adults who blame them because blaming them is easier than having to face themselves in the mirror and admit they are just an average joe with an average life.

amen. eh-eh. ashé. may it be so.