HB454: Banning Affirming Healthcare for Minors

This bill is assigned to the Families, Aging, and Human Services Committee in the House. You can call the Committee Members Here:

*Update May 2022* The Department of Justice has issued this letter reinforcing Federal Nondiscrimination Obligations for trans youth.

This legislation is an extreme attack on affirming mental and medical care for LGBTQ+ youth modeled after similar legislation passed in Arkansas to significant national public and legal alarm, resulting in a Federal Judge blocking the measure in July of this year. According to a Williams Institute Brief on the topic, similar laws have been introduced in nine states, but passed in only one.

Banning affirming mental and medical care for minors goes against the recommended medical advice and would harm the mental and physical well-being of LGBTQ+ youth across the state, specially transgender and non-binary youth.  

Gender-affirming medical care is recommended for transgender youth by the American Academy of Pediatricians and the Endocrine Society and is viewed by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as evidence-based patient care. 

• You can read this article by Columbia University Department of Psychiatry to learn more about the importance of affirming mental and medical care. 
• You can also watch this 60 Minutes video about different bans around the country

HB 454 would interfere with healthcare and youth safety in a variety of ways: 

Prohibits: 

• counselors and educators from concealing or encouraging adolescents to conceal their feelings of gender dysphoria from their parents.
• referrals for medicalized treatments for minors with Gender Dysphoria
• Medicaid from covering the cost of SRS for minors.
• any requirement for private insurers to cover medicalized treatments for gender dysphoria in adolescents.
• hormone blockers for Gender Dysphoria prior to the age of 18.
• cross-sex hormones for youth experiencing gender dysphoria prior to the age of 18.
• surgical interventions or Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) for minors.

Threatens to: 

• remove the licensure of physicians who provide this care and threatens them with civil lawsuits. 
• Withdraw public funds from any hospital at which gender affirming care occurs