Can transgender minors get gender-affirming care in NC? What current state law says

A Charlotte mother recently expressed in a Charlotte Observer opinion piece worry for her transgender child amid North Carolina lawmakers attemptingto pass legislation targeting LGBTQ youth.

“Each time our legislators propose laws targeting our LGBTQ+ community, they hurt our family and thousands of other families,” Sarah Eyssen wrote. “These bills communicate to everyone that it’s okay to treat members of the LGBTQ+ community differently. It’s okay to discriminate, even against a child.”

Among those proposed bills is the Youth Health Protection Act, sponsored by Republican House Reps. George Cleveland, Keith Kidwell, Bill Ward and Steve Tyson would ban gender-affirming care for transgender kids.

If signed into law, the legislation would make it illegal for doctors to provide hormone treatments, puberty blockers or any other procedure that facilitates a “minor’s desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” according to the bill.

The bill carries a $1,000 fine and a license revocation for doctors who provide this care to people younger than 18.

Is gender-affirming care for transgender youth legal in NC?

There are currently no laws on the books in North Carolina that restrict transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care.

This year, at least 14 states have passed legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Arizona and Alabama passed similar laws prior to this year.

How would gender-affirming care bans impact transgender youth?

Bans on gender-affirming care would limit transgender youth’s access to “potentially life-saving treatments” and have a negative effect on their overall mental health, according to Dr. Deanna Adkins, the director of Duke University’s Child and Adolescent Gender Care Clinic.

“The kids have a number of risk factors we are really able to help a lot with, with the care we are providing,” Adkins said. “Even in some cases they decrease their suicidality to the level of their peers. In this group of adolescents, it’s the second or third leading cause of death – suicide. If we can reduce that in this group, we really are attacking an important part of what is taking the lives of our young people.”

Two in three transgender or non-binary youth report symptoms of depression, and one in five have attempted suicide in the last 12 months, according to Adkins.

“When we look at treating these individuals with gender-affirming care we find that the rates of suicide are cut in half, the rates of depression reach, oftentimes, the rates of their peers who are not transgender, there is an 80 percent risk reduction in suicidal ideation,” said Adkins. “And when we have parent support and educator support we improve resilience and have much better mental health outcomes.”