Montana Senate Passes Social Transition Restrictions and Care Ban For Trans Youth

One after another, Democrats stood to speak in opposition to the anti-trans gender affirming care ban for trans youth in the state. The bill, SB99, passed the Senate and now goes to the House floor.

On February 7th, Montana’s Senate debated and voted to pass Senate Bill 99, a bill that would withdraw transgender youth in the state from gender affirming care by banning it within the state. In doing so, it joins Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Utah in passing such a bill through at least one legislative chamber - Utah being the only state to pass it fully this year. During the debate, Democrats stood and strongly objected to the bill, pointing out how it was being driven by out of state forces and the ways in which the bill contradicts both science and the Republican Party’s own platform of parental rights. Often during the floor debate, Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers (D) stood to object to abusive and harmful language that proponents were using to describe gender affirming care, accusing the Republicans of breaching decorum. After passionate pleas and strong debate, Democrats managed to secured 5 Republican votes - they needed 9 in order to block the bill. The bill passed the Senate and now will go on to the House.

Montana’s Senate Bill 99 is a particularly cruel bill. Like other medical transition bans, it eliminates gender affirming care for trans youth. It singles trans minors out and bans things like puberty blockers and hormone therapy. In a discriminatory fashion, it targets transgender youth specifically with these bans while explicitly allowing such treatments to continue on intersex individuals and kids with precocious puberty. It even allows cisgender kids who wish to get breast augmentations for cosmetic reasons - only trans procedures are targeted. These factors, among many more, have led to similar bills being blocked in court and paused due to constitutional issues - see Alabama and Arkansas. Unlike other bills though, it also targets social transition.

See this line added to the bill that targets social transition:

Section in SB99 on social transition.

This is a significant escalation in attacks on trans youth. Whereas previous bills focus mainly on medical procedures, this bill aims to curtail and even possibly eliminate social transition for trans youth in many circumstances. During the floor hearing, Senator Edie McCafferty (D) intensely questioned this section of the bill: “If a student were to confide in their teacher that they were struggling with their gender identity, that school’s counselor wouldn’t be able to give that child or even the child’s parents a referral to anyone who could speak to trans issues.”

She then went on to talk about even more ways it could be harmful, “Could complementing about a haircut or using a nickname get a public employee in trouble? What about anybody having a conversation in a public building?”

This section could be used to argue against bathroom access for trans youth. Even allowing name changes on forms could be considered “promoting or advocating social transitioning.” School dress codes that allow trans youth to dress as their gender might run afoul of this portion of the bill. Social workers that affirm trans youth in how they speak and interact with them may be considered to be “promoting social transition.”

This bill also unfairly targets transgender youth for procedures they still allow in other individuals, for instance intersex people. Senator Jen Gross (D) noted this when questioning the bill’s sponsor, Senator John Fuller (R). She likewise noted that when she questioned him in committee, Senator Fuller didn’t even know that intersex people were in his bill. These bills are often being pushed by large organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Principles Project, as reported recently by the New York Times and as I have covered in great detail in my own newsletter here, and the sponsors of the bill often have no idea how their own bills work.

The bill would be disastrous for transgender youth who benefit from both social and medical transition. Gender affirming care reduces suicide rate by up to 73% in transgender youth. Social transition also has the profound effect of reducing depression and anxiety. Among youth who have their names and pronouns used, they saw 71% lower severe depression and 65% reduction in suicide risks. This bill would hinder social transition and block medical transition entirely for trans youth.

At times, the debate got very heated. On numerous occasions, Republican Senators used hurtful language to define gender affirming care. They called the care mutilation, amputation, and compared it to lobotomies. Senate Minority Leader Flowers stood up and objected every single time this was done. At one point, he passionately responded to the comparison with a story about his own wife, who had to undergo a mastectomy due to cancer and said, “not once did any doctor refer to this as an amputation.” Watch Senator Flowers each time he objected:

At times, Republican senators spoke. Senator Wendy McAmy (R) stood to talk about her own views on the bill. She said that while she was against the care, she believed that the freedom for families to navigate the patient-doctor relationship was the only way she could stay ideologically consistent. She stated that she would vote against the bill from a parent’s rights perspective, “I do believe that parenting is a fundamental right, to take that right away from the parent is absolutely inappropriate, and I will be voting no.”

Senators pointed out that even Governor Gianforte has spoken about the importance of the rights of parents to determine medical care. For instance, speaking about masking and vaccines, Gov. Gianforte stated in 2021, “This emergency rule ultimately directs schools to recognize the fundamental rights of parents.”

When it came time for a vote, the bill passed the Senate 28-21. Five Republicans sided with Democrats on the bill - they needed 9 in order to kill it. Now, the bill will move to the House for further debate. When this bill was heard in the Senate, testimony against the bill outnumbered testimony for the bill 4:1. Representative Zooey Zephyr (D), Montana’s first transgender woman representative, testified in the Senate committee hearing for this bill a week ago, “We’ll fight like hell on the house floor,” and it appears that this fight will indeed occur as a result of this vote.

Should this bill be signed into law, it will be one of the most extreme anti-trans bills in the United States. The care for many patients will be at risk - states surrounding Montana are likewise targeting the care. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho are all potentially states where these bans could pass - some of these states have bills that have already made significant progress in their own state houses. Activists are hopeful that the bill will face a much tougher fight in the House. Until then, all that opponents to this bill can do is prepare for the fight to come.