Via Unsplash.com
By Julie McCaffrey
JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Two anti-transgender bills were passed by Missouri legislators last week, one that bans gender-affirming care for minors and another that bans trans athletes from playing on school sports teams that align with their gender, according to CNN.
These bills follow an emergency rule announced last week by the Missouri attorney general limiting gender-affirming care for both minors and adults.
The two bills passed last Wednesday were approved by the state Senate in March, and passed in the state House along party lines, states CNN, adding the legislation is now headed to Republican Gov. Mike Parsons’s desk, who is expected to sign them and has expressed approval of the legislation.
One of the bills, SB49, is titled the “Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act,” According to the legislation, it prohibits gender affirming surgery and administering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors.
Violations of this law result in action against the health care provider, through revoking their professional license or other punitive actions. Those receiving treatment prior to August 28, 2023, the effective date of the bill, are exempted. This ban would remain enacted until August 2027.
Supporters of the bill have argued that the bill is protecting minors from permanent health treatments, according to CNN.
Parson tweeted last Wednesday, “All children, regardless of their gender or orientation, are invaluable and should not be subjected to potentially irreversible surgeries and treatments prior to adulthood.”
Opponents of the bill, including the ACLU of Missouri, have expressed their outrage over the bill, accusing lawmakers of targeting vulnerable Missourians, and stating that “erasing trans youth is just the start of despot tactics.”
Representative Ashley Aune, an opponent of SB49, tweeted, “To my trans sisters, brothers & others: I’m so sorry. Your Missouri Legislature has failed you. I promise I’ll never stop fighting for you and lifting up your experiences. You matter, and it’s the honor of a lifetime to be your voice in this body.”
The second bill, SB39, prohibits students from competing on sports teams that are “designated for the biological sex opposite to the student’s biological sex as stated on the student’s official birth certificate or other government record as described in the act,” according to the legislation. Should schools violate this act, they will not receive any state aid or revenues from the state. The bill is effective on Aug. 28, 2023.
However, there has not been significant findings that trans athletes have an advantage over other cis counterparts. A 2016 study found “there is no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender female individuals (or male individuals) to have an athletic advantage at any stage of their transition.” Instead, it found that “the majority of transgender competitive sport policies that were reviewed [in the study] were not evidence based.”
The ACLU of Missouri released a statement following the passing of SB49 and SB39, stressing the importance of gender-affirming care and its ability to save lives, stating that “every person in the state should be alarmed by this weaponization of the government to intimidate people through the denial of basic health care and exclusion from extracurricular activities.”
The ACLU criticizes the state’s interference with private health decisions and disregard for research-based evidence and medical recommendations in favor of gender-affirming care, noting “as they have with abortion, politicians again demonstrate they do not care about the impact on Missouri families.”
The passing of these bills follows an emergency rule announced by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey that would limit gender-affirming care for adults and minors. According to CNN, the rule claims that emergency action is “needed because of a compelling governmental interest and a need to protect the public health, safety, and welfare” of Missourians.
In a statement, the Attorney General’s office called gender affirming care “experimental” and claimed that children are “[given] life-altering drugs without parental consent,” charging the regulation is necessary after the rising number of gender affirming surgeries and other interventions.
Despite the claims that this regulation is “based on dozens of scientific studies and reports,” organizations such as Lambda Legal, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health disagree on the legitimacy of the scientific reports, said the ACLU.
Lambda Legal attorney Nora Huppert stated, “This emergency rule is an unprecedented attempt to prevent broad categories of transgender people – including adults – from being able to obtain gender-affirming care, which is evidence-based, supported by the overwhelming medical consensus of major medical organizations, and in no way ‘experimental.’”
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health agreed with Huppert’s assessment, and wrote in a statement that gender-affirming care is, in fact, safe and backed by evidence.
“Gender-affirming interventions are based on decades of clinical experience and research and are not considered experimental,” the organizations wrote in a joint statement. They also provided a list of medical associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association, that have supported the provision of gender affirming care as medically necessary.
They further criticize Attorney General Bailey’s claims, calling them “taken out of context, cherry-picked, or from unverified sources. In some situations, the excerpted statements used in the regulation are later contradicted in the same study or article from which they were pulled.”
They conclude, “The emergency regulation issued by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is based upon manipulated statistics, flawed reports, and incomplete data, and prevents the provision of medically necessary care.”
According to CNN, opponents of the bills filed lawsuits to block the emergency rule, and were successful. The rule was temporarily blocked by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo, buying the court more time to “consider whether it should issue emergency relief in a lawsuit seeking to strike down the restrictions.”
The ACLU reports trans rights have been targeted by dozens of bills this year alone in the U.S. The Trans Legislation Tracker is currently tracking 543 anti-transgender bills…70 have passed, 101 have failed, and currently 372 are active.
