Tennessee bill to ban trans treatments for minors advances in committees
Republican-backed legislation to ban medical treatments for transgender youth cleared its first hurdles this week, moving quickly through committees in both General Assembly chambers over objections from Democrats.
Republicans last year filed the legislation, the first of the session, to ban medical procedures, medications and surgeries for youth living with gender dysphoria. Doctors would be prohibited under the law from providing any health care to minors "to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with" their sex assigned at birth.
House Bill and Senate Bill 1 would also block youth from receiving health care via telehealth.
Supporters of the bill alleged in committee hearings this week the medications, including puberty blockers and hormones, prescribed to transgender youth can be harmful and cause irreversible side effects, though the proposed law still allows doctors to use these medications for conditions unrelated to gender dysphoria.
"The weight of these decisions is too heavy for children. As a society, we understand that minors need limitations, so we place many age-restrictions on activities for children that can have lifelong consequences such as smoking, drinking alcohol, buying lottery tickets and even getting tattoos," bill sponsor Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, said Wednesday. "It is reasonable to also put age-restrictions on these transformational elective medical procedures.”
Democrats have decried the legislation as governmental overreach interfering with private medical decisions between families and their doctors. Major U.S. medical associations, such as the American Medical Association, have criticized similar legislation and defended the treatments as evidenced based and medically necessary for some patients.
Heather Thomas, a native Tennessean, spoke against the bill in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday. Thomas shared her family's experience with gender-affirming care, as her son struggled with severe gender dysphoria through for most of his life before later transitioning as a teen.
Thomas told the committee she knows firsthand how hard it might be to understand the trans experience, but she implored lawmakers to vote down the bill.
"My brave child is alive today because of the treatment he received," Thomas said.
Bill would classify gender-affirming care as child abuse
In addition to regulating medical treatments, the proposed legislation would codify seeking medical treatments on behalf of a minor as child abuse under a separate portion of state law.
Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney and deputy director for transgender justice, said the child abuse provision is the first of its kind he's seen in similar bills across the country.
The child abuse provision would apply to a section of state code devoted to juvenile courts.
"What we're seeing here is that the state might come in and punish a parent who is trying to do right by their child, a parent who loves their child, as I know all of us as parents do," Strangio said. "When children are suffering, it is excruciating. The last thing we need to do is punishing them for trying to help their children.
Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, called the bill "insulting" in on Wednesday.
"I don’t care if you agree with [Thomas] or not, there’s no question that’s a mother who loves her child, who was fighting for her child every step of the way," Yarbro said after her personal testimony. "What we’re saying is that what she did, being a loving mother, renders someone guilty of child abuse in this state. That is wrong."
House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, sponsored the House version of the bill.
"Love these children, support these children. Get them through adolescence, just get them to 18," Lamberth said. "And then they can make whatever decision that they want to."
Chloe Cole, a California teenager who spoke in support of the bill on Tuesday, said she regrets transitioning beginning her sophomore year in high school. Cole now says she has de-transitioned, wasn't capable of making "informed medical decisions" and believes medical transition is "never appropriate for children in any capacity."
"The greatest right that children have is to grow up into healthy, functional adults who are able to live fulfilling lives and make their own choices," Cole said.
Similar bills face legal challenges
A similar Alabama law has been temporarily blocked in federal court, as the state prepares for what will likely be an expensive legal battle, while then-Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed a similar law in 2021, calling it "vast government overreach."
The bill cleared the House health subcommittee on Tuesday but has not yet been assigned to a full Health Committee agenda. The Senate version will go to the Judiciary Committee next.
The legislation was proposed after controversy erupted last fall over Vanderbilt University Medical Center providing some gender-affirming treatments to teenagers. Conservatives alleged Vanderbilt pushed the treatments as a "money-making scheme."
More:Tennessee's GOP leadership proposes ban on gender-affirming care as first bill for 2023
Vanderbilt started its gender-affirming care program in 2018. No gender-altering surgeries are performed on children, though the hospital said it has performed an average of five breast-reduction surgeries on minors older than 16 each year since the program started.
Following the controversy, Vanderbilt announced it would pause surgical procedures for minors to review new international recommendations for transgender patient care.
The hospital has not commented at length about its other treatments, though medical guidelines allow puberty-blocking medications for teenagers only after extensive psychological counseling and with parental consent.
Frank Gluck contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee bill to ban trans treatments for minors advances in committee
