Louisiana lawmakers approve ban on transitional care for underage transgender people

The news

Louisiana lawmakers have voted to make the state the last to prevent transgender minors from accessing gender transition care, pushing forward legislation that would ban hormone treatments, puberty blockers and youth surgeries.

It was unclear Wednesday how Governor John Bel Edwards would respond to the legislation, or whether his input would make a difference.

Mr. Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, has resisted, but the bill passed the Republican-controlled state legislature by a large enough margin to override a veto.

Background

Proponents of the bill argued that it would help protect children from medical treatments they believe are risky, unproven and could have long-term consequences. Several Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill.

“The people of Louisiana have made it clear that our children are worth fighting for,” State Representative Gabe Firmment, the Republican who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.

Critics argued that the proponents’ position ran counter to the views of much of the medical establishment, and that the ban would deny young people access to care that could be medically necessary and beneficial to their well-being.

Republican lawmakers revived the bill after an earlier attempt at the committee level failed. Last month, on the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, Fred Mills, a Republican, cast the casting vote to stop the bill from passing, drawing significant backlash from right-wing activists.

“I relied on science and data and not political or societal pressure,” said Mr. Mills, who is a pharmacist, according to The Associated Press. “I prioritized the value of the doctor-patient relationship, I trusted that the doctors in Louisiana know better than I do about the treatment of these children, and I decided that this is such a small unique subset of the medical needs of the entire population that I must not take away approved and appropriate medicinal options.”

This time, the bill was diverted through another committee to move forward. In the Senate, Mr. Mills was the only Republican to vote against.

Why it matters

If the measure becomes law, Louisiana would join 17 states that this year have enacted bans or severe restrictions on access to transitional care for minors, all part of a broader effort by conservative lawmakers to protect the lives of transgender or gender-nonconforming people. regulate young people.

The Louisiana legislature also recently passed bills that would ban teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation — a version of what critics have called “Don’t Say Gay” laws enacted in other states — and which would allow of students would restrict teachers and school officials from referring to them with pronouns other than those of the gender on their birth certificate.

LGBTQ advocates have criticized lawmakers for going to such lengths to target a small population that has a painful history of being marginalized and mistreated.

The state has an estimated 4,000 transgender teens, according to a report published last year by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ research organization based at the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles.

And a Louisiana Department of Health report found no gender transition surgeries had been performed on minors in recent years. The agency, based on Medicaid claims data from 2017 to 2021, reported that the number of youth receiving hormone treatments and puberty blockers was quite small, ranging from 21 to 57 children per year.

What’s next

If the bill becomes law, it could mean transgender minors forego transitional care or leave the state to find it. Under the bill, young people already receiving this treatment would be allowed to continue it temporarily to avoid an abrupt halt, but that window will close at the end of 2023.

In a similar situation last year, when lawmakers voted to exclude transgender students from school sports by a veto-proof majority, Mr Edwards – who also opposed that legislation – neither signed nor vetoed the bill, allowing it to become law. The bill, he said at the time, “would become law whether or not I signed it or vetoed it.”