Missouri Senator Defends Child Marriage After Trans Ban Passes House

Senator Mike Moon defended child marriage the same night in which a gender affirming care ban passed the Missouri House. Senator Moon has sponsored several anti-trans bills.

Last night, the Missouri House passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Proponents of the bill fronted concerns over protecting minors and their ability to consent to medical care. Later that evening, Senator Mike Moon (R), testified in support of a similar ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth carried over from the Senate. During a House General Laws committee hearing, Representative Peter Merideth (D) questioned Sen. Moon's intentions, highlighting that if Moon truly aimed to protect children, he would not support allowing child marriage as young as 12. In a stunning response response, Moon defended child marriage, stating he knew of 12-year-olds who had married and remained so.

Sen. Moon has carried several anti-trans bills, including gender-affirming care bans and a “Don’t Say Gay” bill. These proposed laws would pull transgender youth off of their medication and target them in educational settings. Gender affirming care bans are particularly heinous in Missouri because they result in trans youth being pulled off of medication, forcibly medically detransitioning them. Moon has repeatedly stated that the purpose of these bills is to "protect youth" who are too young to consent to medical care. For example, when discussing the gender-affirming care ban, he said, "The intent of this bill is to protect youngsters to allow them to mature."

However, Sen. Moon's stance on child marriage lacks consistency. During a hearing on this very bill, he was questioned about his vote on a separate bill that would ban 12-year-olds from marrying. Assumedly, child marriage is less defensible than obtaining life-saving medical care when it comes to protecting youth. In response to the line fo questioning, Senator Moon defended child marriage, stating that he knew people who got married at 12 years old and were still married.

See the following clip from the House General Laws Committee:

Peter Meredith is referring to House Bill 1630, which was introduced in Missouri in 2018. The bill would have banned adults from marrying children under the age of 17 years old and would have also entirely banned youth under 15 years old from getting married. Senator Moon took issue with this when he was in the House of Representatives. He proceeded to vote against the bill. Here is the relevant statute from the bill:

HB1630 banning child marriage in Missouri.

Missouri is not the first place that this issue has emerged as a clear case of hypocrisy among Republicans. Earlier this year, Wyoming Senators sparred over a bill to raise the age for marriage while considering anti-trans legislation. They used arguments such as fertility of people under the age of 16 as an excuse to allow such marriages. In Tennessee, one of the states that has passed the most anti-trans legislation this year, a lawmaker pushed for the legalization of child marriage. In West Virginia, several Republicans who voted for the gender affirming care ban voted against the bill that restricted child marriage there.

It is important to note that consent to gender affirming care for trans youth works the same way as any other medical care. If the care is found to be important to the youth in question, doctors work with families to determine the best medical pathway forward. In the case of gender affirming care, the care itself can be life-saving. It has been shown to substantially reduce the risk of suicide and major depression. One study shows a suicide risk reduction by as much as 73%. Another showed a 1-year reduction rate of around 40%.

Sen. Mike Moon demonstrated hypocrisy and hostility toward transgender individuals by defending child marriage while simultaneously promoting a bill that would prohibit gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Child marriage is far less defensible in terms of protecting children than providing medical care in consultation with doctors and therapists. It becomes evident that the standard to which Sen. Moon and his fellow Republicans hold transgender care is not applied consistently when it comes to other favored legislation. These bills do not stem from firm positions on "parental rights" and "youth consent" but rather from an intent to erase transgender individuals from society, starting with transgender children.