Georgia Becomes 10th State To Pass A Ban On Trans Care For Youth

Gender affirming care bans are sweeping red states. They target transgender youth in cruel ways and go against medical guidelines and standards of care. Georgia is the first "purple" state to do so.

Map of gender affirming care bans that have passed or have a chance of passing.

Yesterday, Georgia passed SB140, a bill that bans gender affirming care for transgender youth. In doing so, it became the 10th such state to pass a ban and the very first state that voted for Biden in the general election cycle to do so. This move comes after a major state-wide senate election featured a Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, that leaned hard into anti-trans stances and lost. Despite the lack of political success seen at the state level in Georgia when targeting transgender people, Republicans there have pushed ahead with the ban and passed it through both legislative chambers. It awaits the governor’s signature before it is enacted into law.

Georgia’s push came on the same day as several other anti-trans bans saw significant movement. In Missouri, lawmakers passed a gender affirming care ban that carried with it a sunset clause - the bill will automatically expire in four years. That bill will go back to the House, where they have passed a similar measure already. In Indiana, a gender affirming care ban passed a House committee and must pass the full House before being signed into law. This Indiana bill, according to opponents, could ban voice therapy and referrals by psychologists with a provision that bars “aiding and abetting.” In Montana, a gender affirming care ban passed a House committee and likewise will go to the full House there.

The Georgia ban is filled with glaring errors and cruel provisions that target trans youth. Although some Republicans have pushed the narrative that the bill is “moderate,” any fair reading of the bill shows that it will place the state among the ranks of the worst states for transgender people moving forward. The bill starts with a misrepresentation of scientific fact, goes on to ban hormone therapy and surgery for transgender youth, explicitly legalizes those procedures for intersex kids, and then contains a legacy (grandfather) clause for those already being treated.

From the very beginning, the bill lists a summary of “legislative findings,” of which many are false or misleading. See these findings here:

Legislative findings on Page 2 of SB140

The “statements of fact” are included, likely, in order to be used when the bill is inevitably heard in court. These statements are not supported by science. For instance, the idea that “a significant portion of children with gender dysphoria do not persist” is based on a decades-old myth and misrepresentation of the rates of detransition. In testimony, we heard many proponents of this and other bills state that “80% of trans youth will detransition,” and this has been thoroughly debunked as being based on old data that is no longer applicable. Under modern diagnostic guidelines, only 2.5% of transgender youth detransition - many of these do so because of parental pressure and discrimination.

The actual ban portion of the bill is short. The bill does exempt puberty blockers and allows people already on hormone therapy to continue. Still, the exemption is of little consolation to trans youth who are on puberty blockers or expect to start them after living as their gender for years. These transgender youth will be forced through the wrong puberty in front of their peers, a cruel fate that will lead to an increase in suicide and mental health problems. It will ban hormone therapy and gender affirming surgeries, the latter of which are extremely rarely performed, for trans youth moving forward.

The bill also has a carveout for intersex individuals. This is a negative carveout - intersex activists oppose surgeries done on non-consenting intersex youth. These surgeries often involve doctors making a guess on which binary gender identity an intersex individual will present as growing up, and the doctor then makes that choice for the infant. Many intersex people do not appreciate that choice being made for them, and many will not present as a binary gender. The ACLU has opposed these procedures in line with intersex activists.

See the full provisions:

Care ban provisions

This bill and others like it will severely harm trans youth. Gender affirming care is associated with a 73% lower suicidality and 60% lower major depression in one study. In another, it has been found to reduce recent actual suicide attempts by 40% in the last year. All major medical organizations support this care due to the evidence that it can save lives.

In total, there are 23 states with gender affirming care bans moving through state legislatures that have a chance of passing. These are legislative chambers controlled by Republicans which have already introduced these bills. From my professional analysis, I expect a total of 18 of these states to ban gender affirming care by the end of the year for trans youth. These states contrast strongly with the rest of the states on this map, several of which have moved to protect and codify the right to gender affirming care. The U.S. appears to be dividing into two distinct regions: one targeting transgender individuals and banning their care, and another increasingly safeguarding this population through legislative actions.

It is unlikely that this law will help politicians in the next general election. Polls have consistently shown that people oppose these intrusive laws, with a recent state level poll in Kentucky showing that even most Republicans opposed it. Republicans continue to push forward with this legislation though, likely due to increased primary pressure from far-right candidates who care more about ideological control of their party than they do about general election battles. With the 2024 election cycle looming, cisgender people debate trans care with trans lives held in the balance.