By Joshua Arnold
The Washington Stand
Over the past two weeks, state legislatures have accelerated their push to protect children from gender transition procedures, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and non-genital and genital surgeries. On March 2, four state legislatures had enacted laws prohibiting gender transition procedures for children, but since mid-March that number has swollen to eight, with bills awaiting governors’ signatures in two additional states.
In the first two months of 2023, four state legislatures passed bills offering some degree of protection to minors from health care professionals who would perform gender transition procedures on them. Utah’s SB 16 was signed into law on January 28. South Dakota’s HB 1080 was signed into law on February 14. Mississippi’s HB 1125 was signed into law on February 28. And Tennessee’s SB 1 was signed into law on March 2 (though passed in February).
This legislative progress accelerated in late March, as four state legislatures passed bills in rapid succession.
Iowa’s SF 538, which passed the Senate (33-16) on March 7 and the House (58-39) on March 8, was sent to Governor Kim Reynolds (R) on March 22 and signed the same day. It forbids a health care professional to “knowingly engage in or cause” and gender transition surgery or the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on a minor “if the practice is performed for the purpose of” an attempted gender transition. It will be enforceable through professional discipline, a private cause of action, and the state attorney general.
Georgia’s SB 140, which passed the Senate (33-22) on March 6, the House (96-75) on March 16 with amendments, and the Senate again (31-21) on March 21, was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp (R) on March 23. It prohibits “irreversible procedures or therapies shall be performed on a minor for the treatment of gender dysphoria,” including “Sex reassignment surgeries, or …Hormone replacement therapies,” enforceable by professional boards. However, it contains exceptions for “Treatments for medical conditions other than gender dysphoria or for the purpose of sex reassignment where such treatments are deemed medically necessary” and “Continued treatment of minors who are, prior to July 1, 2023, being treated with irreversible hormone replacement therapies.”
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