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On Friday we asked if there are any Republicans running for office in Iowa on the platform of banning gender-transition treatment for minors.

In 2019, bills were filed addressing this issue. House File 2272 was sponsored by Rep. Terry Baxter, who is not seeking re-election this year. He had six cosponsors, two of which will no longer be serving in the Iowa House after this year.

Four representatives are on the ballot and will likely return to Des Moines in 2023 who cosponsored the legislation — Representatives Dean Fisher, Tom Jeneary and Skyler Wheeler as well as Rep. Sandy Salmon who is running for the Iowa Senate.

The law would have made it illegal for a medical professional to perform interventions or surgical procedures specified in the bill on a minor and would have subjected a medical professional to disciplinary action and civil penalties for providing prohibited treatments to or performing surgical procedures on a minor — unless the treatment occurs based on the good faith medical decision of a parent of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sexual development.

The following procedures would have been banned under the law:

*Performing a surgery that sterilizes, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty.
*Performing a mastectomy.
*Administering or supplying certain medications that induce transient or permanent infertility, such as puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay puberty, supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or other androgens to members of the female sex, supraphysiologic doses of estrogen or synthetic compounds with estrogenic activity to members of the male sex.
*Removing any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.

Just two organizations registered for the bill — The FAMiLY Leader and the Iowa Catholic Conference.

A lot of groups registered against it, including:

*The Hale Group
*Anthem Inc. and Its Affiliates Including Amerigroup
*Wellmark
*Iowa Mental Health Planning Council
*Human Rights Campaign
*Meredith Corporation
*ACLU
*Iowa Conference of United Methodist Church
*Blank Children’s Hospital
*Planned Parenthood
*Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault
*Iowa Primary Care Association
*One Iowa Action
*GLBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force (Iowa Safe Schools)
*Interfaith Alliance of Iowa

The bill was referred to the Human Resources Committee, but GOP leadership never gave it a subcommittee hearing.

In the Iowa Senate, Sen. Jake Chapman filed Senate File 2213 in 2020. He didn’t have any cosponsors.

That bill prohibited a healthcare professional from engaging in certain practices upon a minor and from causing such practices to be performed upon a minor for the purpose of attempting to change the minor’s sex or for the purpose of affirming the minor’s perception of the minor’s sex.

Any healthcare professional who violated the bill would be committing a Class B felony. It also had a carveout for healthcare professionals acting in accordance with a good-faith medical decision of a parent of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sexual development.

That bill was referred to Judiciary and assigned a subcommittee, but there was never a subcommittee hearing. That year, 2020, was the year session endured a rare recess due to COVID.

Many of the same groups registered against this bill, but this list also included Principal Financial Group and League of Women Voters of Iowa.

The Iowa Standard is reaching out to legislative candidates asking for their position on this issue.

Author: Jacob Hall

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