Three North Carolina Republican lawmakers recently introduced legislation that would bar doctors from prescribing transgender drugs to or performing gender transition surgeries on individuals younger than 21.
Senate Bill 514, called the Youth Health Protection Act, is defined as an “act to protect minors from administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and other related actions, procedures, and treatments.”
The measure, introduced by GOP Sens. Ralph Hise, Warren Daniel, and Norman Sanderson, would also protect the rights of parents to “withhold consent for any treatment, activity, or mental health care services that are designed and intended to form their child’s conceptions of sex and gender or to treat gender dysphoria or gender nonconformity.”
The legislation would also block state interference with counsel or other guidance “consistent with conscience or religious belief,” and would bar state taxpayer dollars from being used to fund transgender medical procedures or to pay for health insurance coverage that includes such procedures.
Doctors who violate the law could have their licenses revoked and incur civil penalties or other forms of disciplinary action.
The bill has been referred to the Committee on Rules and Operations of the North Carolina Senate:
“This bill is an essential measure to protect the health, safety, and welfare of adolescents, teens, and young adults in North Carolina from chemical and surgical interventions that are destroying individual lives and families across our nation,” North Carolina Family Policy Council President John L. Rustin said, elaborating:
These drugs and body-mutilating surgeries cause sterility and irreversible physical damage to young people suffering from gender dysphoria and other challenges. Because 80 percent or more of teens who experience gender dysphoria eventually identify as their biological sex, the compassionate approach is to provide wise counsel and resist the cultural trend to rush into harmful hormone therapies and gender transition procedures.
Supporters of the LGBTQ agenda denounced the bill as blocking “health care” from young people.
“Transgender youth have the best chance to thrive when they are supported and affirmed, not singled out and denied critical care that is backed by virtually every leading health authority,” according to Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
“[A] person’s gender identity shouldn’t limit their ability to access health care or be treated with dignity and respect,” Beach-Ferrara added.
“The proposal in North Carolina will almost certainly not become law, despite GOP majorities in both the state House and Senate,” the AP stated, observing Gov. Roy Cooper is a Democrat.
The AP reported North Carolina Democrats launched a set of bills last week that seek greater legal protections for LGBTQ individuals, including a full repeal of House Bill 2, dubbed the “bathroom bill,” which was passed in 2016.
The North Carolina lawmakers introduced the bill on the same day the Arkansas legislature overrode Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s (R) veto of the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, a measure that will block minors from receiving transgender drugs and undergoing gender transition surgeries.
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