The South Dakota House yesterday passed a bill that would ban transgender youth and their parents from making decisions regarding their medical care. Doctors who prescribe treatment related to gender affirmation could face jail time.
The bill, H.B. 1057, passed the Republican-controlled House 46 to 23. Ironically named the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act,” it would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for any medical professional to prescribe or administer hormone treatment, puberty blockers, or to perform gender-affirmation surgery on anyone under 16 years of age. There is an exception only for treatments and surgeries for intersex children “with external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous”—a definition that itself seems ambiguous to me.
The state Senate also has a Republican majority, and the governor, Kristi Noem, is also Republican. Noem told the Argus Leader that she has “concerns” about the bill related to “try[ing] to fill parenting gaps with more government,” so it’s unclear if she’d sign it. It’s disappointing her answer isn’t a hard no, however.
State Rep. Fred Deutsch (R), the bill’s sponsor, has tried to walk back statements he made recently, comparing gender-affirmation surgery to the experiments performed on Holocaust victims—though I’m not convinced he’s changed his mind about anything. He told the New York Times that “he had heard about people in other states who regretted transitioning from one gender to another,” and that’s what prompted the bill.
Fact is, though, that people who regret gender transitions are few and far between. As the National Center for Transgender Equality notes, “While not everyone needs transition-related medical treatments, there is an overwhelming consensus in the medical community that they are medically necessary for many transgender people and should be covered by private and public insurance. Every major medical organization in the United States has affirmed that transition-related medical care is safe and effective, and that everyone who needs it should be able to access it.”
Let’s be clear, too: It is extremely rare for any doctor even now to perform gender-affirmation surgeries on youth. Including that in the bill is merely a scare tactic. Puberty-blocking medicines are a more common prescription to help young transgender people—and they do help. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes in a 2018 policy statement (my bold):
Often, pubertal suppression creates an opportunity to reduce distress that may occur with the development of secondary sexual characteristics and allow for gender-affirming care, including mental health support for the adolescent and the family. It reduces the need for later surgery because physical changes that are otherwise irreversible (protrusion of the Adam’s apple, male pattern baldness, voice change, breast growth, etc) are prevented. The available data reveal that pubertal suppression in children who identify as TGD [transgender and gender diverse] generally leads to improved psychological functioning in adolescence and young adulthood.
This bill would thus prevent parents from accessing medically sound treatments that can improve their children’s well-being.
In the South Dakota Senate, two other bills threaten the health and well-being of trans and gender expansive youth. S.B. 88 would require that counselors, school psychologists, and social workers disclose to parents whenever a young person “is articulating feelings of gender dysphoria.” As Libby Skarin, policy director for the ACLU of South Dakota said in a statement, “Senate Bill 88 infringes on the rights of privacy of youth and deters young people from seeking support from trusted adults in positions to counsel them.” The organization also noted, “This bill could result in forced disclosure of someone’s trans or questioning status to a non-affirming parent which could result in the young person becoming homeless or physically harmed.”
S.B. 93 would allow parents to refuse consent to medical treatment for their child, “if the parent reasonably believes that the service would induce, confirm, or promote the child’s belief that the child’s gender is different from that which it was at birth or that the gender with which the child identifies is different from that which it was at birth.” As the ACLU of South Dakota notes, too, “Parents, however, already have broad constitutional and common law powers to make decisions about medical treatment for minor children in their care and custody that cannot be limited by legislation.” In other words, there’s no reason for this bill other than anti-trans animus.
If you’re a South Dakota resident, contact your legislators now and urge them to stop these bills. Follow the ACLU of South Dakota and Equality South Dakota, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy organization, for more updates and ways to take action. Everyone else, keep an eye on them, too. A government trying to interfere in decisions between doctors and patients (and minor patients’ parents), based on medically sound evidence confirmed by multiple legitimate professional organizations is a very bad precedent to set.