Although many lawmakers didn’t see it as a priority this session, the Missouri House Emerging Issues committee already has passed along four bills targeting the transgender community in the state.
“I know that leadership of this body has said that this bill is not a priority and yet we are moving it first within week four,” said Rep. Jamie Johnson, D-Kansas City. “I want to put on record that I am deeply disappointed in the differences between our behavior and our words.”
Last year, lawmakers banned minors from receiving gender-affirming treatments, but the legislation passed with an expiration date after four years. This year, Rep. Brad Hudson, R-Cape Fair, filed legislation to remove that sunset and make the ban permanent.
It passed in a committee hearing last week, although there are still several hurdles the bill must clear before receiving final approval. Advocates for the LGBTQ+ community decried Hudson’s bill and six others in public testimony that lasted over eight hours on Jan. 17.
“Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Missourians have existed throughout history and always will,” said Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of PROMO, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. “The legislature’s continued effort to erase gender diverse Missourians demonstrates the complete disregard these lawmakers have for human dignity.”
Another bill from Hudson that passed the committee would allow health care professionals who have a moral objection to providing gender-affirming care to opt out of treating those patients. Witnesses from the University of Missouri School of Medicine testified about their feelings of being ostracized by their peers for their objections to providing such treatment during a public hearing earlier this month.
“It hurts to think that there’s a possibility that because of my personal beliefs and refusing to partake in some practices, that I could be written off as an incompetent doctor because it completely disregards the work that I’ve done to get here,” said Samantha Pichardo Barron, a Mizzou medical student.
However, that sentiment isn’t shared among all medical students, as Erin Nischwitz, who is also a medical student at the University of Missouri, expressed concerns that the broad language of this bill might encompass all medical personnel, from receptionists to pharmacists.
“It puts a really lengthy barrier for patients receiving care that may have nothing to do with transgender care, and has already been deemed by a physician as medically necessary and appropriate,” Nischwitz said.
Two other bills that passed the committee last week seek to dictate what bathrooms can be used by transgender people in schools, specifying that they must use the restroom that identifies with the biological sex designated on their birth certificates.
The bill sponsors said that they intend for this bill to protect children from potential sexual assault by those who might pretend to be transgender to gain access to a certain restroom for nefarious purposes. But the bill has broader consequences for transgender students and adults who may need to enter the school and use the restroom.
Charlie Adams, a transgender medical school student, was questioned about the reception that he might receive entering a woman’s restroom. Adams, who has a full beard and broad shoulders, felt that he might raise some eyebrows if he entered the women’s restroom.
Transgender college student May Hall sometimes uses the men’s restroom to prevent women feeling uncomfortable by her presence in that restroom. Her sacrifice, however, comes with consequences she must face in the men’s room.
“I’ve walked in, and people have groped me,” Hall said. “People have called me names. People have called me slurs. It is an extremely uncomfortable environment, but I continue to in some spaces use the men’s restroom purely to not discomfort cisgender women.”
The bathroom bans were also added to a Senate bill that attempts to create a “parent’s bill of rights,” parts of which resemble Florida’s “don’t say gay” law. This would require parents to be notified by teachers of any perceived changes in gender identity expressed by children.
Three other bills were considered by the committee in the public hearing on Jan. 17, but they have not yet been voted on by the Emerging Issues committee. The legislation attempted to create statutory definitions of gender identity according to biological sex at birth, as well as extend the bathroom bans to workspaces.
