GOP-led states expand crackdowns on transgender care

[Jessica_Rose]

GOP-led states expand crackdowns on transgender care

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/gop-led-states-expand-crackdowns-on-transgender-care/ar-BB1jORFx?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=7724c48606fd40e1b0c5b0a0a1671578&ei=12

Story by Lauren Sausser, Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez, McKenzie Beard (13 March 2024)

South Carolina's legislature is poised to pass a bill prohibiting doctors from offering some health-care services to transgender minors — part of a new wave of anti-trans legislation from Republican-led states.

The South Carolina bill, which passed the state House of Representatives in January and is under consideration in the Senate, would bar health-care providers from performing gender-transition surgery, prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and overseeing hormone treatments for patients under 18.

It would also mandate that school officials notify parents of a student's transgender identity and block the state Medicaid program from paying for gender-affirming care to patients under the age of 26.

Twenty-three states had passed laws restricting gender-affirming care as of the end of February, according to KFF.

Anya Marino, director of LGBTQI equality at the National Women's Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for women's rights, said apart from the legal concerns some of these bills raise, she also worries about other consequences, including acts of violence against transgender people.

"It's part of a larger objective to control people through body policing to determine how they love and how they navigate their daily lives," Marino said.