After the midterm elections and a record flood of anti-transgender laws last year, Republican state lawmakers have focused on issues of bodily autonomy this year with new proposals to limit access to gender-affirming health care and access to abortion.
In 11 states—Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia—more than two dozen bills have been introduced to limit transgender people’s access to health care. 2023.
Bills targeting other aspects of transgender lifestyles have been filed in many states and are pending in several other GOP-majority countries.
Gender-supporting healthcare professionals and parents of trans young people are the main targets of these bills, many of which aim to criminalize helping a trans child get what doctors and psychologists consider “essential health care.”
Erin Reed, a researcher who tracks transgender legislation, said public institutions in which Republicans have increased their lead over the medium term are likely to double down on anti-transgender legislation this year and reintroduce some of the more drastic measures that have not been enacted on previous sessions.
Of the 35 anti-LGBTQ bills already submitted in Texas, three will classify the provision of gender-affirming assistance to minors as a form of child abuse, following last year’s directive from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that ordered child protection agents to begin investigating cases of child abuse. parents who allow their children to receive gender-affirming care.
In Tennessee, the Republican Party-controlled legislature announced after Election Day that its first priority would be to prevent health care providers from changing a child’s hormones or performing surgeries that would allow him to represent a gender other than his gender. The pre-filed bill would replace the current law with stricter restrictions.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said last year that teens with gender dysphoria can start taking hormones at age 14 and can undergo certain surgeries at age 15 or 17. The group acknowledged the potential risks, but said it was unethical to withhold early treatment, which could improve psychological well-being and reduce the risk of suicide.
A law was tentatively filed this week in Republican-controlled Oklahoma that last year passed restrictions on transgender participation in sports and the use of school toilets. It aims to prohibit gender-proven care for patients under the age of 26 and to block its coverage under the state Medicaid program. .
“This is the worst anti-transgender bill I have ever seen in any state,” Reid said, noting that adult medical transition bans were a “hypothetical escalation” until recently.
Another Oklahoma proposal prohibits the distribution of public funds to organizations that perform gender verification procedures for patients under the age of 21.
“It is irresponsible for any healthcare worker to perform or recommend life-changing surgeries that may later be regretted,” said the author of the bill, Republican Rep. Jim Olsen. “Performing irreversible procedures on young people can cause them irreparable moral and physical harm at a later age.”
A similar bill tentatively filed in South Carolina, where Republicans control both houses, also requires trans adults over 21 to get referrals from their doctor and licensed psychiatrist before they can begin treatment.
Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said she sees the bills as a product of the “permissible atmosphere of hate” fueled by misinformation and fear-mongering that made anti-LGBTQ rhetoric more acceptable after former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election. .
“We have politicians and celebrities and just people in our communities who have been given permission under Trump to dig out this scab and do and say hurtful things without repercussions,” Renna said. “It unleashed the Pandora’s nightmare of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism.”
“If you look at the last few years,” she said of the LGBT community, “we feel like we’re under attack that hasn’t been for decades.”
Meanwhile, Democrats in some states are taking a more aggressive approach to protecting the health of transgender people.
A new California law, effective Jan. 1, protects the families of transgender young people from criminal prosecution if they travel to California for gender-affirming medical procedures, such as surgery or hormone therapy, from states that ban such treatment for minors. By making California a haven for trans youth and their parents, the law blocks out-of-state subpoenas and prohibits health care providers from sharing information about gender-affirming care with out-of-state organizations.
Another California bill, filed in December, would expand those protections by preventing a justice of the peace from issuing an arrest warrant for violating another state’s law that criminalizes helping someone get an abortion or gender reassignment.
An Illinois state legislator introduced a similar asylum bill late last year. On Friday, the state House of Representatives passed another bill to increase protection for patients and health care providers who have abortions and support gender-based treatment.
And in Minnesota, where Democrats gained triple control of state government in the midterm elections, a new bill would give the state jurisdiction in child custody cases involving parents who bring their children to Minnesota for gender-verifying medical care.
Reed, a trans woman, is overseeing a growing list of other proposals in government offices, including bans on speaking, restrictions on toilet use, restrictions on LGBT discussion in schools, and barriers to changing the gender marker on a driver’s license or birth certificate. But raising the minimum age proposed for accessing gender-affirming care is her biggest concern.
“Adult transition restrictions come into play, and I’m already hearing some talk about the brain not finishing developing until age 25, so why not restrict it until then,” she said. “Any further loss of autonomy is incredibly worrisome.”
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Hanna Schoenbaum of Raleigh, North Carolina is a member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden issues.
