Limits on transgender kids’ medical care pass North Carolina House

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House passed a bill Wednesday that prohibits medical professionals from providing surgical gender-affirming procedures to minors.

Heated debate led up to the vote, with Democrats saying the bill caused harm to an already vulnerable population, transgender youth, and did not take into consideration those young people’s voices. Republican lawmakers said they were adding necessary protections and that people who undergo these irreversible surgeries may change their minds.

The bill passed 74 to 44, largely along party lines, with supporters including Democratic Reps. Garland Pierce and Michael Wray, as well as Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Tricia Cotham. It now goes to the Senate.

Republican Rep. Hugh Blackwell said Wednesday that his bill “attempts to recognize that surgeries on children under the age of 18, that can have lasting, lifelong implications and that are essentially permanent, should be delayed.”

“The bill doesn’t stop anybody 18 or older from choosing to have a surgical procedure to undergo gender transitioning. It would simply say children would wait,” he said.

A Duke pediatric endocrinologist previously told The News & Observer that transgender children do not typically undergo gender-affirming surgical procedures. Patients who have facial reconstructive surgery, surgery to remove breast tissue, surgery to transform genitalia or other procedures are typically adults, Dr. Deanna Adkins said.

House Bill 808 makes exceptions for diagnosed sexual development disorder, the treatment of infections and more. It does not allow the use of state funds, directly or indirectly, for these procedures for minors.

On Wednesday lawmakers approved an amendment that would also not allow state funds be used to support any governmental health plan or government-offered insurance policy offering gender transition procedures to anyone under 18. Previously, the insurance limitation in the bill had applied only to surgical procedures.

Rep. Vernetta Alston, a Durham Democrat, said the change “is relatively simple but the impact is significant, ”with federal courts having ruled it unconstitutional to refuse insurance coverage for gender-affirmation care.

“Despite what this bill says, it’s really just about bigotry and a national trend frankly to stigmatize the transgender community,” she said, “and no one can credibly argue here or anywhere else that this bill responds to the will of the majority of North Carolinians because it just simply doesn’t.”

…continued

swipe to next page