OAN’s Brooke Mallory
1:45 PM – Wednesday, May 17, 2023
The Louisiana House of Representatives has approved a bill on Tuesday that would forbid providing sex reassignment medical care to minors, following the lead of other Republican-controlled state legislatures around the nation.
The proposal now moves to the Senate for further discussion.
The legislation would forbid medical professionals from performing gender transition procedures on anyone under the age of 18 who wishes to “alter” the gender and sex they were born as, including hormone therapies, sex reassignment surgery, or puberty-delaying medications.
The measure, which will also establish penalties for medical practitioners who offer such care, passed 71–24, mostly along partisan lines.
The bill’s supporters assert that it will shield confused under-18 kids from potentially life-changing medical operations until they are “mature enough” to make such decisions. It was also noted that the number of trans adults who now regret their past decision to mutilate themselves through “gender-affirming care” is growing. Many are now de-transitioning, however, they are also discovering that their voice and reproductive system will never go back to what they once were, since they began the sex reassignment process before puberty.
Those who oppose the bill contend that sex reassignment care can save the life of a person suffering from gender dysphoria who is suicidal and depressed, which is said to be the anguish associated with having a gender identity that is different from one’s assigned sex at birth.
Advocates for the LGBTQ+ community are concerned that a gender-dysphoric child who is not given proper medical care may be more at risk of developing additional mental disorders. Statistics show that transgender kids and adults are much more likely to experience depression and suicidal ideation than non-trans individuals.
However, there is a lot less support for the claim that hormone therapies and sex-reassignment surgery can alleviate these mental issues.
Democrats claimed that the GOP’s drive for parental rights legislation contradicts this most recent bill. Until they turn 18, children in Louisiana must have their parents’ consent before receiving any gender-affirming medical care.
Many of the bill’s opponents who spoke on Monday stated that it is already difficult to locate and obtain timely access to sex reassignment medical services. In a year in which LGBTQ+ campaigners claim that Republican lawmakers are targeting transgender rights, from health care to athletics to bathroom access to pronoun usage, Louisiana is the latest state to implement prohibitions on sex reassignment medical care for kids.
Sex reassignment care for adolescents is either restricted or prohibited by legislation in at least 16 other states. However, there are also laws protecting access to sex reassignment care in some Democrat-led states, like Minnesota and Washington.
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