Bills targeting trans kids are getting defeated in state legislatures

South Dakota’s bill to regulate trans kids’ puberties failed to pass out of committee Monday.

Puberty blockers for transgender adolescents are often described as a “pause button,” a treatment prescribed and recommended by medical professionals. It allows kids to mature before deciding whether to transition or not. On Monday, the South Dakota state senate hit a pause button of its own on a bill that would have banned blockers for trans teens in the state.

The state senate’s Health and Human Services Committee voted 5-2 to kill HB 1057, the so-called “Vulnerable Child Protection Act,” which sought to ban transition-related care like puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and surgery for trans minors. Opponents of the bill say it would cut trans kid off from life-saving gender-affirming care. The South Dakota bill is the second in a series of conservative state proposals to ban such treatment that failed to pass; a Florida state house committee ostensibly killed a bill with the same name last week, though it could be reassigned to another committee or the state senate could pursue passage.

South Dakota is considered a bellwether for anti-LGBTQ legislation because of its GOP dominance. The state’s “vulnerable child” bill passed in the state legislature two weeks ago with an overwhelming majority; the new governor, Kristi Noem, ran on the specific promise to sign the anti-trans legislation that the previous governor vetoed. The senate committee hearing, even with a Republican supermajority, was seen as the last possible chance to stop the bill’s passage. Republican Wayne Steinhauer made the motion to table the bill, however, calling the issue “gut-wrenching.” Meanwhile, committee chair Republican Deb Soholt also voted to kill it.

With two states down this legislative session, anti-trans activists’ hopes of passing these bans appear to be dwindling. Proposed bills are still in the works in Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, South Carolina, and Kentucky.

Perhaps aware that the bill would have a hard time passing as is, the senate hearing began on Monday with an amendment from Rep. Fred Deutsch, the bill’s original sponsor in the state house, to remove criminal penalties for doctors. The new language would instead allow patients to sue doctors administering transition care for medical malpractice.

The committee heard 37 minutes of testimony from both proponents and opponents of the bill. Those testifying for the bill’s passage included anti-trans advocates who were flown in from out of state, including a doctor from California and an activist from Washington, DC, while opponents of the bill were mainly doctors, advocates, and trans people based in South Dakota. The hearing room was standing-room-only, as trans people and allies came from all over the state to rally against the bill.

“It was really fantastic to see the way the community respond[ed] to this bill, and the broad coalition of folks who opposed the hearing today and the hearing back in the House,” Libby Skarin, ACLU South Dakota policy director, told the Daily Beast.

Greg Latza/ACLU

The committee voted to move the bill to the 41st day, and since South Dakota’s legislative session is only 40 days long, the bill is effectively killed. Deutsch said the committee vote result was “totally expected” but wouldn’t say if he would reintroduce the bill in next year’s legislative session if he wins reelection.

What spurred the latest trend in anti-trans laws

While different states each have their own version of these transition care bans, many of them share anti-trans language, such as “the biological state of being female or male based on sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profiles” to describe an individual’s sex and gender. And different states are taking different approaches to legislating trans kids’ puberties.

Before Monday’s amendment, South Dakota prescribed criminal penalties for doctors who administer transition care to minors. Missouri’s bill would automatically report any parent who affirms their child’s trans identity with medical care to Child Protective Services for child abuse, and any doctors found to be dispensing blockers or hormones to minors would have their medical licenses revoked.

Kentucky proposes to go one step further by layering on other conservatives anti-trans priorities: It would allow either parent to override consent for transition care, a right which the state cannot overrule; it would require all government agents to disclose to parents whether a child expresses gender dysphoria or gender-variant behavior; and it would protect the right of any government employee, including teachers, to express their views on gender identity, including misgendering or harassing transgender students. Additionally, any adult (or minor with parent or guardian permission) who had previously been given transition care would be allowed to sue doctors for damages for the next 20 years.

The recent conservative push for an outright ban on transition care for minors grew directly from the social media disinformation campaign surrounding Luna Younger, a 7-year-old trans girl from Dallas caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between parents who disagree over her gender identity. A Texas judge overruled a jury decision to award full custody of Luna to her mother, Anne Georgulas, in late September. That means Luna’s father, Jeffrey Younger, who insists on dressing his child as a boy and forced her to cut her hair, has an equal say in future medical decisions for Luna.

Conservative media outlets quickly and diligently latched onto the case. In the week following the initial jury decision, 23 conservative news sites published 55 stories about Younger, and all opposed the child’s transition. According to data from Media Matters, those 55 stories earned 3.5 million Facebook interactions.

People were so riled up online that some sent threats to Georgulas; she was “viciously attacked and threatened by complete strangers,” her attorneys told the Daily Caller. Several prominent Texas officials even added to the fray: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott promised to order the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate Georgulas. State Rep. Steve Toth said he would propose legislation to “add ‘transitioning of a minor’ as child abuse.” A version of the bill is expected on the Texas docket when the legislature reconvenes next year.

It didn’t take but a few months for this groundswell of conservative opposition to spur the introduction of legislation seeking to ban the medical transitioning of minors altogether.

The bills have run into intense opposition locally

So far, state committee hearings on these bills in South Dakota and Florida have both featured a similar group of out-of-state bill proponents from the Family Policy Alliance, the Kelsey Coalition, and Women’s Liberation Front, a self-described radical feminist group devoted to opposing transgender rights.

These groups have tried to create their own narrative about transition care for minors using carefully mined detransition and transition regret stories from around the world. Their rhetoric is in direct opposition to the guidance given by leading medical organizations.

Compiled by the Trevor Project in a research brief, study after study has shown that affirming trans and gender-diverse kids in their self-exploration improves mental health and lowers suicide risk. The affirming model, which allows children to explore their gender identities at their own pace and can include puberty blockers, has been recommended by nearly every major American medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In an exchange in the Florida legislature over the bill, a doctor advocating for it claimed that there are no studies on the efficacy of transition care for minors, but it was quickly shut down by state representative Carlos Smith. “I just wanted to clarify that you said there were no studies on what the impact of hormones on trans youth,” responded Smith. He then pointed to a national study on trans youth that was just released in late January. “Puberty blockers are linked to a lower suicide rate for transgender youth. I just wanted to bring that to your attention.”

In both South Dakota and Florida, LGBTQ people and advocates mobilized to oppose the bills. Republican South Dakota state senator Arthur Rusch noted during yesterday’s meeting that he got more community feedback on HB 1057 than any other bill in his six years in office before voting to table the bill.

Quinncy Parke, a 17-year-old who is non-binary, testified against the bill on Monday and before the House. “I wasn’t going to let this pass,” Parke told NewNextNow. “I stood up against this once. They didn’t listen before. I’m going to keep doing it until they listen.”

With two early victories in what has become a nationwide political battle over the treatment of trans kids, it’s clear that the trans people, doctors, and advocates who oppose these bills aren’t going down without a fight.