Adult Transgender Bans Are Here: OK Bill Would Ban Medical Transition Under 21 Years Old

We knew this was coming. Multiple organizations have called for adult transition bans. This year, we will be seeing attempts to do just that.

Oklahoma has released one of the worst anti-transgender bills I have seen in any state legislature yet. This bill, HB1011, would make it a felony for a doctor to provide gender affirming care for transgender patients up to the age of 21 years old. Not only would this bill forcibly medically detransition transgender youth, but it targets transgender adults as well. We are witnessing the Overton window on gender affirming care move in real time - whereas just a few years ago, all of the transgender bills were about bathrooms and sports, now they have become increasingly eliminationist in attempting to forcibly detransition all transgender people.

Many transgender people live in stealth, and bills like these would forcibly out them to their peers. For trans youth, the consequences are dire. Imagine being a transgender girl, 16 years old, who has developed as a girl and who everyone knows as a girl. Suddenly out of nowhere, they would be pulled from their gender affirming care and forced to go through a male puberty in front of their peers - facial hair, voice dropping, everything. The consequences for these youth are horrifying - it is of no surprise that medical experts warn that these bills will kill many transgender people through suicide. For transgender adults in this bill, the consequences would be similarly dire - the shifting of the argument from trans youth to trans adults threatens all transgender people in the state of Oklahoma. This forcible removal of medical care and curtailing the ability to live in public spaces represents a material threat to the lives of all transgender people in the state at a time where physical and political violence targets them most.

The bill has several more extremely troubling provisions. One provision in the bill would make it crime for anyone to refer people under 21 for gender affirming care:

This would mean that psychologists, psychiatrists, and doctors could no longer suggest and refer transgender people, adults up to 21 included, for transition related healthcare. This curtailing of psychological professionals and medical professionals to follow the medical guidance of virtually every medical organization would have disastrous consequences and is meant to entirely eliminate transgender people in the state.

The bill also is extremely troubling in how broadly it defines gender affirming care:

In one section, it defines gender affirming care as any drug or service that “alters or removes the physical or anatomical characteristics that are typical for the individual’s biological sex.” This would presumably include hair removal, which would mean that transgender girls who are 20 years old would not even be able to remove their facial hair. The consequences of this are disastrous in a time where many trans people are attempting to pass out of safety concerns given the rise in anti-lgbtq violence and hate rhetoric.

This bill would define all of the above as a felony. Transgender people have been under attack for a long time and we have expected that transgender adults would be targeted next. This comes after many indications that the needle was pointing in this direction. Just recently, the state of Florida pulled all gender affirming care coverage from transgender adults on Medicaid. Texas’ GOP platform released this year called for a ban on transition care up to the age of 21 years old, which this bill does. Erica Anderson, a transgender doctor who has advocated against gender affirming care for most transgender patients and has been interviewed repeatedly by anti-trans journalistic hit pieces advocated against informed consent gender affirming care for transgender adults. In a Missouri bill, one of the legislators proposed raising the age of gender affirming care to 25 years old. Transgender Trend, a major organization pushing anti-trans laws, stated that this year they will be focusing on upping the age of gender affirming care bans to 25.

These bills represent an ever present and encroaching threat to transgender people across the United States. It seems very likely at this point that a bill will be released this year to ban transgender adults entirely. I stated earlier this year that given the movement we have seen from organizations like Genspect and Transgender Trend, we would see at least one bill that raises the age of gender affirming care bans into the young adult range. This bill certainly satisfies that. We need to stand strong against these attacks on the transgender community from political actors that threatens our lives and futures.