‘A bridge too far.’ Some in KY GOP raise concerns, but omnibus anti-trans bill advances

A newly-aggregated omnibus anti-transgender bill denying health care to minors is moving through the Kentucky General Assembly, winning approval from a legislative committee Tuesday morning.

House Bill 470 from Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy, passed the House last week as a ban on gender-affirming health care for Kentucky trans kids and teenagers. The bill would wholly limit how health care providers treat their underage patients with gender dysphoria by outlawing the prescription of puberty-blocking hormones, gender re-assignment surgery, inpatient and outpatient gender-affirming hospital services.

Decker’s newly-sewn Frankenstein bill, approved by the Senate Families and Children Committee in a 6-3 vote Tuesday morning, now includes parts from some of the Legislature’s heftiest anti-LGBTQ proposals this session.

It has absorbed the whole of Senate Bill 150 from Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, which prohibits schools from requiring that teachers use a trans student’s preferred pronouns, and establishes requirements for schools to notify parents about content relating to sexuality taught in schools. House Bill 470 also now includes much of House Bill 177 from Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, which bans “any child, regardless of grade level” from receiving instruction or a presentation “studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.”

Generally, Decker’s bill would codify into law the provision of any gender-affirming services is “unethical and unprofessional,” and the health care professional who provides such care would be declared “unfit to perform the duties and discharge the responsibilities of his or her occupation.” Violating doctors risk a loss of license. Doctors and nurses interviewed by the Herald-Leader who treat this population of patients have called the bill “medical misinformation,” that, if passed, would bloom into a “public health emergency” for LGBTQ+ youth in Kentucky.

The bill has already received two readings in the Senate, so it could pass as soon as Tuesday, but several Republican Senators signaled they would not approve the bill-as.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, told reporters on Tuesday that what would happen with House Bill 470 on the Senate floor was “TBD” but that leadership in both chambers was working on passing “something” related to LGBTQ issues and ‘parental rights.’

“We’re working with House leadership to try to get something that can pass because, as you could tell by the vote today, there are people all over the map on that issue,” Thayer said. “Some want it stricter, some want it to lose some of the provisions. We’ve still got a couple days to figure that out.”

Three Kentucky physicians chastised lawmakers Tuesday for supporting a bill not rooted in any evidence-based standard of care.

Dr. Chris Bolling, representing the Kentucky Medical Association and the Kentucky chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said lawmakers are opting to “follow guidance from discredited and fringe out-of-state organizations.”

The Legislature is “choosing to ban gender care over the advice and evidence from practicing Kentucky health care providers, numerous national medical organizations, and the pleas of Kentucky parents and patients,” Bolling said.

Decker continues to resist this input, saying, “this is a multi-billion dollar industry, which is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years.”

“When you hear medical professionals who are defending their practices, they are also defending their bottom line,” she said. “This is the business of government, to protect the most vulnerable. No parent has a right to cause irreparable harm. We don’t allow parents to give their children alcohol, cigarettes, we don’t turn over our car keys to our children. It’s not allowed in Kentucky, and this shouldn’t be either.”

But not all Republicans agree with her.

Republican former state Rep. Jerry Miller, who retired after the 2022 session, told his former colleagues Tuesday why he opposed their proposal, saying, “the government has no compelling interest here in violating parents’ rights.”

Miller said his seven-year-old grandchild is a trans girl. It was hard reality for him to accept, Miller said, and he still struggles to use the correct pronouns.

“I hoped he would grow out of it, but that has not happened. Do I wish he were a ‘normal boy’? Absolutely yes,” Miller said. “I still screw up the pronoun thing, but regardless of anything, I’m going to love my grandchild and fight for what I think is best for (her).”

Speaking to bill proponents’ resistance to hormone therapy for a trans person, Miller said, “every drug you see advertised on TV has side effects. That’s the point of disclaimers.”

Miller added, “This bill condemns vulnerable children to an even more difficult life than they’ve already been born into. Please don’t let a parent’s right to protect their children be collateral damage in the culture wars.”

Another GOP former state representative, Bob Heleringer, testified against the bill — as he has against other anti-LGBTQ bills this legislative session — saying he’s never seen such a “despicable” bill in 45 years.

“I heard Senator Wise saying, ‘Parents are demanding this kind of legislation.’ Where are they?” Heleringer asked. “None of them have come to Frankfort. There were four hours worth of hearings on Senator Wise’s Senate Bill 150 ... not a parent, not a PTA official, not a school superintendent, not a principal, not a teacher, a counselor — nobody — came to Frankfort and said, ‘We need a bill like this.’

“You’re doing it because you can. You don’t like certain groups of people. They puzzle you. You don’t understand them; you haven’t tried to understand them. And yet they are people that walk and live in your district.”

Decker was joined by an out-of-state doctor who spoke about the perils of gender-affirming care for trans teens, as well as an individual self-described as being formerly trans, and another who testified to being a victim of an “industry” whose bottom line is making money off of pushing transgender children and adults to transition.

“It is impossible to be born in the wrong body. The mind is part of the body, not separate from it,” said Jeannette Cooper with Partners for Ethical Care. Cooper runs an online group for “thousands of parents who do not affirm their child’s transgender identity.” Many of these children grow out of it and “thrive once they don’t need the crutch of the transgender identity.”

“Stopping normal puberty, administering wrong-sex hormones and removing healthy body parts should never be an option, not in any state. No doctor should be removing a healthy finger, healthy leg or healthy breasts from anyone.”

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Additionally, committee materials include written testimony from several “detransitioners,” none of whom were from Kentucky.

An internet search found that all three individuals — Helena Kerschner, Billy Burleigh and Erin Brewer — have all prominently spoken against gender-affirming care, including in statehouses across the country, on Russian state media and Fox News with Tucker Carlson. Brewer’s written testimony urged support for “BR 134,” which is not the bill before Kentucky lawmakers, and was uploaded to the state’s website with the title “Florida Long Testimony.docx.”

Decker said her witnesses are from out of state due to the feeling of fear among supporters within Kentucky.

“There are doctors in this town who would testify but they would lose their job at their hospital,” she said.

GOP divided

The initial version of Decker’s bill sought to outlaw gender-affirming care by mental health providers, including banning the use of a trans kid or teen’s pronouns and name if they don’t correspond with a patient’s gender assigned at birth. The latest version of Decker’s bill no longer includes these explicit references, but it does outlaw “mental health services that address a person’s sex or gender” if those services “promote gender transition.”

This provision in the bill is one of the reasons why Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said he doesn’t support the bill. It’s too vague, he said. Coupled with the threatened revocation of a provider’s license, it is excessive.

“Throughout this legislative session, we have promoted bills to promote parents’ rights,” Meredith said. “I would hope and pray that parents would always make the best decision for their children. But intervention beyond that, I think, is a bridge too far.”

Sens. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, and Chairman Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, said they didn’t like the bill. They said their “yes” votes were conditional on the fact that the final version include significant changes.

“I’m extremely uncomfortable putting myself in the place of where a doctor should be,” Carroll admitted, adding that he’s working on changes to propose. “I don’t like the bill. I hate the tone of the bill. However I feel a complete obligation to protect our kids.”

The only two Democrats on the committee, Sen. Denise Harper Angel, D-Louisville, and Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, voted no alongside Meredith.

“This is the largest attempt in government overriding — the will of our people, our children, our parents — that I’ve ever seen in the last 20 years that I’ve been here,” she said. “It is going to have devastating results and it will not have my name attached to it. I vote no.”

One state lawmaker who filed a bill with some provisions similar to the ones added into the new version of House Bill 470 and has been working with other House members to get that done withdrew his bill, House Bill 173, on Monday.

The bill from Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, had not moved at all in the House before it was withdrawn. It’s possible that Calloway withdrew it in order to add many of its provisions to another bill, since ‘piggyback’ rules in both chambers usually limit legislators from adding an existing bill onto another piece of legislation.

Reporter Austin Horn contributed to this story.