Republican bill bans gender-transition treatment for minors

MADISON — Transgender youth in Wisconsin could not receive gender-transition treatment under legislation proposed Wednesday by a set of Republican lawmakers.

The bill would bar health care providers from conducting or making referrals for certain medical practices for youth under age 18 "if done for the purpose of changing the minor's body to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the minor's biological sex," according to a summary from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

There are no criminal penalties outlined in the legislation, but violations would result in a mandatory license revocation.

"Our children are not experiments," the bill's authors wrote in a memo seeking co-sponsors. "Parents should not be scared or pressured into having their children receive non-medically necessary drugs or irreversible procedures before their brains are fully developed."

The bill is being proposed by Rep. Scott Allen, R-Waukesha, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Town of Cedarburg.

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At least 20 states have enacted similar laws banning gender-confirming treatments for youth.

The legislation specifies several treatments that would be banned, and also lays out exceptions.

Under the bill, health care providers could not administer to minors:

• a surgery that results in sterilization

• a mastectomy

• puberty-blocking drugs

• testosterone for youth assigned female at birth

• estrogen for youth assigned male at birth

• removal of "any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue"

The bill makes exceptions for treatment administered "in accordance with a good faithmedical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development."

In a joint statement, members of the Assembly LGBTQ+ Caucus said the bill "demonstrates abject cruelty from Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature."

“Once again, Republicans are interfering with private medical decisions that belong in the hands of patients and their doctors — not politicians. Gender-affirming care reduces gender dysphoria and helps people live healthy and authentic lives," the LGBTQ+ Caucus members said.

The Wisconsin Medical Society approved a policy earlier this year stating that it opposes legislative restrictions on the provision of gender-affirming care.

The organization "supports increased access to gender affirming health care, psychosocial support, and resources for transgender and gender-diverse youth and adults, including that both public health programs and private insurers provide coverage for those services," according to the policy, which also expresses support for "increased training for physicians and other health care providers regarding the health needs of transgender and gender-diverse youth and adults."

The American Medical Association in June passed a resolution supported by the Endocrine Society "opposing any criminal and legal penalties" for those who seek or provide gender-affirming care.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin GOP bill bans gender-transition treatment for minors