An effort to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, which lawmakers are trying to resurrect at the State Capitol, is being fueled by a barrage of claims rebutted as dangerous and misleading by the nation’s leading medical groups and state health officials, our media partners at The Advocate report.
The legislative maneuvering on Louisiana’s proposed ban on hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgical procedures for people younger than 18 is not over, despite a Senate panel’s narrow rejection of the ban last week. Advocates for the ban continue to say that its goal is to protect children, and some conservative lawmakers are hoping to revive it on the Senate floor or in another committee, the newspaper reports.
According to The Advocate, driving the discussion is a brew of claims from conservative interest groups, Christian activists, a small group of physicians and factions of the Republican party. Doctors, psychologists and transgender Louisianans have come to the Capitol to challenge the claims, but with little effect on lawmakers’ voting choices, as evidenced by an overwhelming majority of House lawmakers voting to approve the ban earlier this month.
“Tragically, much of the medical community in the United States has embraced unnatural, unproven and unnecessary experimental procedures that defy medical reality and common sense,” said the ban’s sponsor, state Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, in a May committee hearing. He declined an interview with the newspaper.
At least 30 medical groups including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association endorse gender-affirming care as safe and effective. Few providers in Louisiana offer the care, and none currently perform surgeries on children enrolled in Medicaid programs, according to provider interviews and a report released in March by the Louisiana Department of Health. It’s unclear how many children receive the care who are not enrolled in those programs, The Advocate reports.
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