I found the article called "Affirmative Care with Trans and Gender Nonconforming Youth" to be particularly engaging, as I have professional experience working with that population, as well as personal experiences as being a member of the LGBTQ community myself. I am particularly interested, in general, in the intersections between social work and public health, which felt like a prevalent theme to me in this reading in terms of the history of access and availability of gender affirming services for children and adolescents.
Going off of that, I think it is interesting, albeit probably somewhat necessary, that gender affirming treatment for children and adolescents is a lot more gatekept than it is for adults. They highlighted both that the field is working towards developing more affirmative treatments that afford agency to the child or adolescent who is embarking on their gender journey, that hopefully don't force genderfluid folks to "pick one gender," and that they still have a long way to go in terms of research and developing best practices. Doubled with the challenge that creating a standardized set of care practices for gender affirming services is nearly impossible considering that the services needed are so unique to each and every individual and can continue to shift over time.
I appreciated that the article pointed out that gender affirming medical interventions can often be life-saving procedures for children and adolescents - something I think that, in general, social workers might be better attuned to than potentially other healthcare professionals.
And the concern that the presence of mental illnesses could potentially be perceived as a barrier to care, rather than a reason for accessing services, is a common fear and misunderstanding children and adolescents could potentially face if they aren't working with competent and knowledgeable providers.