Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults — returning to the issue the year after a wave of high-profile bills became law and sparked lawsuits.
As legislatures begin their work for the year, lawmakers in several states have proposed enacting or strengthening restrictions on puberty-blocking drugs and hormone treatments for minors. Bills to govern which pronouns kids can use at school, which sports teams students can play on, and which bathroom they can use are back, as well, along with efforts to restrict drag performances and some books and school curriculums.
LGBTQ+ advocates say that most of the states inclined to pass bans on gender-affirming care have done so, and that they now expect them to build on those restrictions and expand them to include adults. With legislatures in most states up for election this year, transgender youths and their families worry about again being targeted by conservatives using them as a wedge issue.
Oh, but they told us it was just about kids! Because gender affirming care is child abuse, right? And Republicans are against Big Government interfering in people’s lives, aren’t they? Hmmm… it’s almost as if they threw logic out the window a few decades back or something, isn’t it?
I’m so tired. These ghouls want us all gone and they aren’t going to stop.
I don’t understand the outrage. We hardly receive healthcare at all if you’re not rich.
Sometimes I wonder if this is being used as a distraction from actual healthcare reform. Your insurance dollars are lining pockets, not paying for care.
It allows them to pretend that they’re interested in reforming the system that’s working as designed.
You don’t understand the outrage over Republicans’ efforts to single out and oppress a segment of the population they clearly want to eliminate entirely?
Coulda protected trans people with national legislation, but preserving the Jim Crow Filibuster was more important.
We stand for freedom and liberty, no not like that!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As legislatures begin their work for the year, lawmakers in several states have proposed enacting or strengthening restrictions on puberty-blocking drugs and hormone treatments for minors.
“They’ll stop at nothing, so we don’t know what exactly to anticipate (in 2024),” said Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of PROMO, an advocacy group in Missouri, where lawmakers have proposed more than 20 bills targeting LGBTQ+ people.
Bills filed in Missouri include efforts to remove two provisions that were key in overcoming a Democratic filibuster to that state’s ban on gender-affirming care for youths.
The new Missouri Freedom Caucus is prioritizing a bill that would make the ban on gender-affirming care for minors permanent, removing a provision that allows it to expire in 2027.
“We passed what I thought was a strong and fairly broad bill last year,” said Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, referring to the medical ban.
Legislation introduced Wednesday in West Virginia would ban gender-affirming care up to age 21 and prohibit mental health professionals from supporting what lawmakers call a transgender patient’s “delusion” about their gender identity.
The original article contains 1,289 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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I swear, if not for Illinois, poss Michigan, anything not bordering an ocean would be a flyover state.
Edit: Well, even then, quite a lot of both IL and MI would still be flyover country.
