There's money in medicine, of course—income and expenses—just as in every other industry or profession. In the context of trans kids, the far-right often implies that doctors make huge profits when they treat trans kids—although of course they have no theory about where the big bucks come from.

Two days ago, Libs of TikTok tweeted a purportedly bombshell email that consisted of one doctor asking another about possibly increased "coverage" from "insurance" for gender-affirming surgeries and the "potential revenue" for the hospital; one of the doctors wanted to provide this financial info to hospital administrators in the sort of meeting where money is discussed. Of course, hospital administrators need to know about revenue (whether from insurance or out-of-pocket) for every type of procedure performed. Financial considerations are not unique to the care of trans people. It is a very boring hospital administrator sort of email, like when we take out someone's tonsils, how do we get reimbursed?

Anyway, my idea/question is how proposed legislation like Tennessee's (to pressure insurers to drop trans people everywhere) would leverage the smear that hospitals and/or insurance companies treat trans people for profit (beyond the normal way in which they treat anyone for profit). Seems the smear might be debunked in the process (if the actual numbers were released) or else somehow intensified (e.g., if insurers refuse to drop trans people on principle, they'll be accused of sticking with trans people for profit, regardless of what the numbers say, because 99% of the public won't look at the numbers—alternatively, if insurers do drop trans people to preserve their "bottom line," Libs of TikTok will say, See, Big Healthcare was motivated by profit all along, and we just came up with a bigger number to persuade them).