The year after a flood of high-profile cases became law, Republican-led state legislatures are once more debating bills restricting medical treatment for transgender boys and some adults. The majority of states that are inclined to enact gender-affirming care restrictions, according to proponents of transgender rights, have done so. They now anticipate that those states will expand on those limitations to include adults. At least 22 states have passed laws prohibiting gender-affirming care for children. The majority of them received approval last season. Major health organizations support the treatment for youth but resist the bans. They claim that when used properly, it is safe.
State legislatures led by Republicans are debating a fresh round of legislation restricting medical treatment for transgender youth and, in some cases, adults. This legislation was brought up in the same year that it became law and sparked lawsuits.
Legislators in a number of states have suggested enacting or strengthening limits on puberty-preventing medications and hormone treatments for adolescents as the year’s legislative sessions get underway. Bills governing the pronouns that students can use at school, the restrooms they may use, efforts to limit drag performances, some books, and school curricula have all been reinstated.
According to LGBTQ+ activists, the majority of states that were prone to enacting laws prohibiting gender-affirming treatment have already done so, and they now anticipate that these laws will be expanded to include adults. Transgender students and their families are concerned about being targeted by conservatives once more as a hammer issue as legislatures in the majority of states are up for election this season.
They include Mandy Wong, a family from Santa Barbara, California, who expressed her displeasure with liberal politicians’ use of trans children as “campaign fuel.” Her child and his friends feel emotionally spent, despite the fact that she doesn’t anticipate such a policy passing in her Democrat-led state, according to Wong.
“It was truly heartbreaking to inform him,” she said, “I don’t think this will go away anytime soon. All the bad press that trans kids, including us as parents, have received as a result of these proposals doesn’t seem to be going away.”
House Republicans in Ohio voted on Wednesday to remove Republican governor. Policy banning all kinds of gender-affirming care for adolescents was vetoed by Mike DeWine. This quarter, it is anticipated that the Senate will do the same. DeWine signed an order prohibiting gender-transition therapies before age despite his veto. Additionally, he suggested regulations requiring a care team for both children and adults that, according to detractors, could greatly limit access for all patients.
A House committee in South Carolina, one of the few Southern states without a moratorium on gender-affirming treatment for minors, decided on Wednesday to give the restrictions to the House floor. The bill, which was sponsored by the Republican House speaker of the state, had likewise forbid Medicaid from providing these procedures to children under the age of 26. Additionally, the House in New Hampshire voted last week to outlaw gender-transition clinics for children.
At least 22 states have passed laws prohibiting gender-affirming child treatment, the majority of which were approved in the previous year. Supporters of the restrictions claim they care about the procedures themselves and want to protect children. Major medical organizations oppose the prohibitions and have endorsed such care, claiming that it is safe when used appropriately. These organizations include the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.
A Florida legislation that has made it nearly impossible for some trans people in the state to obtain gender-affirming care was one of last year’s restrictions. Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, as he competes for the Democratic presidential nomination, has cited those restrictions as one of his accomplishments.
According to Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of PROMO, an advocacy group in Missouri where lawmakers have proposed more than 20 bills targeting LGBTQ+ people, “they’ll stop at nothing, so we don’t know exactly what to anticipate (in 2024).”
Two procedures that were crucial in getting over a Democrat legislature to that government’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for youth are included in bills filed in Missouri. A bill that would permanently outlaw gender-affirming treatment for adolescents and remove a clause that allows it to expire in 2027 is being prioritized by the new Missouri Freedom Caucus. A provision allowing adolescents who started the treatment before the law took effect to continue with it would also be repealed by the bill.
Democratic state senator Mike Moon compared transgender health restrictions for minors to age restrictions in laws for tobacco, alcohol, and driving. Moon is sponsoring bills to reform the validity date of the restrictions and to mandate that schools inform parents if a student wishes to use another name or pronoun than the one the parent used to record the child for school.
“Children, especially younger ones, sometimes don’t make wise choices and are unsure of what reality is,” according to Moon.
Colleges may be the only place a transgender or nonbinary student can show their gender identity safely, according to LGBTQ+ protesters who call laws requiring schools to inform parents of renaming or pronouns “forced outing.”
Activists have taken notice of Missouri’s numerous filed bills, but Republican legislative leaders claim they don’t believe there is much of a desire to revisit the restrictions and that they do not want to prioritize them.
In reference to the health restrictions, Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden said, “We passed what I thought was a powerful and very large bill last year.”
At least two bills that aim to ensure that adults receive gender-affirming treatment are still in effect in Oklahoma as of last year. The procedures for adults would not be covered by insurance under one bill, and any organization that offers such treatment may be barred from receiving public funds under another.
Both bills were defeated in the Republican-controlled government last year, but they might be reintroduced in February’s legislative session.
Advocates claim that the new restrictions put on adults by the rules DeWine proposed in Ohio next week would render treatment challenging, if not impossible, for some people. They include requiring the hiring of a team for people that consists at least of an endocrinologist, bioethicist, and physician. Sections would also be required by the rules to gather information on gender dysphoria and its treatment from health professionals.
Florida has seen the filing of some bills, one of which calls for workers at state agencies or any organization receiving state funding to be required to use pronouns that are appropriate for their assigned sex at birth.
Legislation introduced on Wednesday in West Virginia did forbid mental health professionals from supporting what politicians refer to as a trans patient’s “delusion” about their sex identity and ban gender-affirming treatment up to age 21.
Republicans are mounting a long-term effort to put enacted legislation targeting the rights of transgender minors on the ballot the following year in California, which has provided refuge to transgender youths and their families from states with health bans.
Senator Kathleen Kauth of Nebraska, who last year supported the state’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for children under 19, claimed that her push for LGBTQ+ legislation was not motivated by partisan politics. She is once more pushing a bill that she introduced last year that would limit transgender students’ access to restrooms and locker rooms as well as their ability to participate in sports.
Democratic lawmakers filibustered almost every bill from the previous session as a result of Kauth’s health ban.
Kauth said, “I don’t think it’s something that is designed to get reelected because, you know, my district is actually half and half — slightly more are conservative than liberal. I am for putting a stop to government overreach, whatever it may be, and protecting children.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is receiving more and more cases to existing laws across the country. The Kentucky and Tennessee courts have been asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to lift limitations on youth care.
Arkansas’ request to overturn a decision that overturned the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for students is also being considered by the whole 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judges chosen by both Democratic and Republican presidents have so far issued national rulings opposing the bans.
Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City, while DeMillo came from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press authors Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, and Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California all contributed to this report. They were David Lieb and Summer Ballentine from Jefferson City in Missouri.
