The Idaho House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that would criminalize gender reassignment surgeries and gender-based health care for people under the age of 18. Under HB 657, an update to the 2019 state ban on female genital mutilation, medical staff providing gender. -Affirm health care and parents who agree to have their child receive this care could face life in prison.
The bill was passed in the Republican-controlled House by a vote of 55-13 and now reaches the Senate. The only Republican who voted no to the measure was Rep. Fred Wood, a retired licensed physician.
In its current form, the bill would require anyone who “consciously participates” in specific forms of health care to “change or affirm the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is incompatible with the child’s biological sex.” “, including non – surgical options. such as puberty blockers or testosterone injections, guilty of a felony.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.
“This bill is about protecting children, which is a legitimate state interest,” Republican Rep. Bruce Skaug, who sponsored the bill, said Tuesday. “We need to stop sterilizing and mutilating children under the age of 18.”
But Democratic opponents of the bill disagreed.
“We sit around and call ourselves pro-life in this body, but if this bill is passed, it will certainly not be true because a favorable vote will be a noose around the neck for children who want to live, but not like that. “Representative Ned Burns told The Associated Press.
Responding to the idea that decisions on gender assertion should only be made after a person reaches adulthood, Democratic House minority leader Ilana Rubel noted that “allowing puberty follow its course, it changes the body in a profound and irreversible way “.
“You’re forcing people into a situation where the transition for the rest of their life on Earth will be much less effective,” he said, according to AP. “You’re really playing with their lives until the day they die.”
Several other states are trying to pass bills or implement orders that potentially criminalize the provision of care to transgender children who claim gender. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in February ordered state agencies to investigate gender assertion as child abuse.
In 2021, the American Medical Association wrote a letter to state lawmakers saying such bans could have disastrous effects on the mental and physical health of transgender children. “All major medical associations in the United States recognize the medical need for transition-related care to improve the physical and mental health of transgender people,” the letter said.
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