Utah Bans Transgender Surgeries, Puberty Blockers for Children

The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City on Jan. 17, 2021. (George Frey/AFP via Getty Images)

Utah is the first U.S. state this year to ban most minors from receiving body-altering transgender surgeries or puberty blockers.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed the legislation on Jan. 28, after the measure, SB16, received final approval by the state Senate a day earlier on a 20–8 vote; two Republican state senators joined with the chamber’s six Democrats in voting against the bill. The House voted 58–14 earlier in the week to pass the proposal.

The measure, which takes effect immediately, prohibits health care providers from performing transgender surgeries or prescribing hormone therapy for minors who haven’t yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria—a term that the Mayo Clinic defines as “the feeling of discomfort or distress ... in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics.”

However, it doesn’t halt minors who are already receiving hormonal therapy; the moratorium is only for new patients.

The law requires that the state’s Department of Health and Human Services conduct a “systemic review of the medical evidence regarding hormonal transgender treatments and provide recommendations to the Legislature,” although it doesn’t set an end date for the review or require the state Legislature to revisit the policy once the review is complete.

It also places certain requirements on health care providers to administer hormonal transgender treatment and contains provisions allowing for minors to bring malpractice lawsuits against health care providers for treatment they provided if the individuals later “disaffirm consent.”

SB16 was sponsored by Republican state Sen. Mike Kennedy, a practicing family physician, who said his motivation behind the legislation was “to protect children from making irreversible changes to their bodies,” the Tribune reported.

“Our country is witnessing a radical and dangerous push for children to enter this version of health care,” he said. “Caring for our children does not mean riding the latest radical wave. Caring for our children means stepping back from the churning waters and asking some tough, complex questions.”

Last week, Cox told KSL News Radio’s “Let Me Speak to the Governor” program that he’s “not planning to veto” the bill, Deseret News reported. According to the outlet, Cox said he’s had “lots of conversations” with the bill’s sponsor and other “stakeholders,” including members from the LGBT community, about the legislation.

He said the bill “approaches it in the right way.”

“We’re going to push pause, we’re going to look at the research, we’re going to gather all of the data and make sure we’re not doing any long-term harm to our young people,” he said.

According to sfgate.com, the state’s Legislature made the bill’s passage a top priority, hearing the first draft just two days into Utah’s 2023 legislative session.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the legislation carried two-thirds support in both the House and Senate, which meant that had Cox decided to veto the bill, it would have been likely overridden “in short order.”

Republican state Sen. Todd Weiler struggled with his decision to join the Democrats in opposing the legislation, Deseret News reported.

Describing himself as a “big believer in parental rights,” he told the news outlet that he’s also been “startled” by the recent news coming from Western European countries—such as Sweden, the United Kingdom, and France—that have been performing surgeries and administering hormone blockers to youths for “almost a decade“ before it became ”routine” in the United States and are now making “moves to overhaul medical care for transgender youth.”

“With that decade longer experience, those countries ... have all started putting the brakes on this,” he said.

Utah’s LGBT advocacy group Equality Utah continues to oppose the legislation, according to Deseret News.

“I’ve seen little evidence that lawmakers are really listening to families with transgender children [and] seeing the positive impact of this care,” Equality Utah’s executive director Troy Williams told the news outlet.

“This debate is far from over. It will next move to the courts,” he wrote in a text to the Tribune.

From NTD News