The Texas legislature voted Wednesday night to prohibit gender-affirming care for the majority of youngsters, putting a bill to the governor’s desk that, if passed, would make it impossible for transgender youth in the nation’s second-most populous state to access essential health care.
Gender-Affirming Care For Minors
In addition to prohibiting minors from receiving hormone therapy, hormone-blocking medications, and gender reassignment surgeries, Senate Bill 14 also threatens to revoke the license of any medical professionals who treat transgender children.
Democrats in the House used procedural obstacles to stall the proposal for days. For kids who started non-surgical gender-affirming care before June 1, 2023, and who had 12 or more sessions of mental health counseling or psychotherapy six months before starting prescription medication care, a tiny exception was allowed by House Republicans.
Children who fall under those exceptions can still get care, but they must “wean” off of it with their doctor’s assistance. The final requirement for final passage was the Senate vote to approve that alteration.
“Here in Texas, we will protect our kids! Thank you to everyone who supported and helped pass my bill. I look forward to @GovAbbott’s signature soon,” bill sponsor state Sen. Donna Campbell tweeted after the Senate’s vote. You can see below:
Here in Texas, we will protect our kids!
Thank you to everyone who supported and helped pass my bill.
I look forward to @GovAbbott's signature soon. #txlege https://t.co/wYTr6wIph6
— Donna Campbell (@DonnaCampbellTX) May 18, 2023
If signed by Abbott, the ban will take effect on September 1.
Gender-affirming care includes a variety of empirically supported procedures and strategies that are advantageous to transgender and nonbinary people. Many mainstream medical societies consider the various care options, which vary depending on the recipient’s age and aspirations, to be the gold standard of treatment.
Some kids and their parents could undergo reversible puberty suppression therapy, even though treatment is very customized. Hormone therapy, which can result in gender-affirming physical changes, may also be a part of this process. However, surgical operations are not frequently performed on children, and many medical professionals do not provide them to youngsters.
If you are interested in this, you can find additional information by following the link that has been provided for you below:
- Texas Examines Hospital Over Transgender Minor Care
- Texas Senate Passes Law Limiting Transgender College Sports Teams
Republicans’ concerns about the therapies’ long-term effects have been voiced. The American Psychiatric Association quotes major medical organizations as saying that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for infants and adults with gender dysphoria, psychological distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity and the s*x given at birth do not match.
If Abbott approves the legislation, Texas will become the seventeenth state this year to limit transgender children’s access to care that is gender-affirming. The service was outlawed in Florida by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday, and Oklahoma refused the care at the beginning of May.
According to statistics gathered by the American Civil Liberties Union, approximately 125 measures that target LGBTQ rights, particularly healthcare for transgender people, have been submitted across this legislative session.
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