Republican bill to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender inmates clears KY Senate
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-bill-to-restrict-gender-affirming-care-for-transgender-inmates-clears-ky-senate/ar-AA1zlz8G?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=c13e479cb2fe4f0783bc8fbc90f7dbd7&ei=129
Story by Alex Acquisto, Austin Horn (19 Feb 2025)
The Kentucky Senate has given the green light to a priority bill to prohibit Kentucky's jails and prisons from paying for and providing hormone therapy to transgender inmates.
"We are called to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are spent in ways that benefit the Commonwealth of Kentucky," Senate Majority Whip Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said. "In my opinion, and I'm sure the opinion of many other folks in the Commonwealth, those are not services that benefit the Commonwealth of Kentucky or the citizens of Kentucky."
Opposing Democrats called the bill "fear-mongering," a "witch-hunt," blatantly "unconstitutional" — a finding that multiple courts across the country have upheld — and characterized it as a solution in search of a problem.
Wilson's bill, for instance, blocks the Kentucky Department of Corrections from providing gender-affirming surgeries to trans inmates. But though those guidelines existed for a time, legal counsel with the department testified under oath last month before an Government Contract Review Committee that those surgeries have never occurred in jails or prisons in Kentucky.
The department does, however, provide gender-affirming medication to that population when it's doctor-recommended, just as the department does with other prescription medications. At that time, there were 67 trans inmates receiving gender-affirming medication — roughly 0.5% of the total statewide incarcerated population.