Utah, Mississippi, and Florida Race To Ban Care For Trans Youth

These three state are moving quickly to ban gender affirming care for trans youth. The result of these bills will be devastating in to the trans community in those states.

Senate vote on SB16 in Utah

2023 has arrived and already, the pace of anti-trans legislation is moving faster than it ever did in previous years. Over 166 anti-trans bills have been proposed and we are only 20 days into the year - this beats the 155 total bills proposed in 2022. Of these bills, several have moved through committee hearings. 6 out of 7 bills that have been heard in committees have passed through to the legislative floor. Of all of these bills and states, three stand out in the rush to be the first to put into effect a law or rule banning gender affirming care for trans youth: Utah, Mississippi, and Florida.

Mississippi was the very first state in 2023 to pass a gender affirming care ban for trans youth through a committee - HB1125. On the very same day, they sent this bill to the house floor as one of the very first bills heard in Mississippi’s 2023 legislative cycle. This bill would ban gender affirming care for transgender youth and will now head to the Senate, where they will hear the bill and potentially pass it for the governor to sign it into law. We knew from previous statements from the governor that transgender issues were going to be a top priority in his agenda, prompting me to bump the risk of Mississippi to high on the legislative risk map. Should this bill fully pass, Mississippi will join the ranks of the worst states for anti-trans laws in the United States.

Utah’s senate on the very same day passed a bill, SB16, that would end gender affirming care for trans youth there. Similarly, the bill was rushed from committee onto the senate floor. In the committee hearing for the bill, Democratic Senator Escamilla put the Republican anti-trans bill to the test by offering an amendment that would ban “plastic surgery such as breast implants” for all teenagers, cisgender and transgender ones. Her rationale was simple: if trans people have to be denied gender affirming care, cisgender people should be denied it as well. The Republicans voted down the amendment 5-2 under the rationale, “breast implants for teenagers have been around for a long time now.”

Florida has been planning and proposing a gender affirming care ban for trans youth for months. Their first attempt at a ban could not get through the legislature. As a result, Ron DeSantis appointed anti-trans doctors to the Florida Board of Medicine to utilize executive authority to ban gender affirming care for trans youth. In late October, the board voted to indeed enact such a ban. The exact mechanics of that ban will be presented and voted on on February 10th.

There are other states proposing gender affirming care bans across the country. The count of such states with such bans proposed is 21 as of the writing of this article. Privately, I have heard of several more states that plan such bans. Some states like Oklahoma have seen bans proposed going up to 26 years old. South Carolina has seen similar legislation proposed targeting 26 years old. Other states have seen proposed bans up to 21 years old - Kansas has, for example. Texas has seen proposed non-binding legislation that states a goal of banning gender affirming care entirely.

Gender affirming care bans are disastrous for transgender youth. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, gender affirming care results in a reduction of suicidality by up to 73%. The prestigious journal Pediatrics has also released an article showing that trans youth who are forced through the wrong puberty see higher rates of depression and anxiety disorders. Meanwhile, a study released yesterday showed that hormone therapy improves mental health for all trans teenagers that persists when measured 2 years later. Preserving this care is life-saving.

The Trevor Project recently published a poll on the effect of these anti-trans laws on the mental healthcare of trans youth. Their poll showed that 86% of trans youth report experiencing a negative impact to their mental health as a result of the onslaught of legislation. This is even before the actual impact of the legislation banning their care is felt. Here are some more results of that poll:

Trevor Project Poll

Next week, there will be a slate of anti-trans hearings across the United States. North Dakota is going to hear nearly a dozen anti-trans bills around healthcare bans, birth certificates, pronouns, and more. New Hampshire will see a bill that will focus on the definition of “biological sex” which could write trans people out of the law entirely. I plan to clip as much testimony as possible so that everyone can see what good and bad testimony looks like, so please subscribe to stay up to date with the movement of these bills.

If you would like to get involved in tracking these bills and ensuring hearings do not get missed, the best thing you can do is pick a state - it can be yours, but it doesn’t have to. Learn to navigate the state website, especially the committee hearing schedules page. Every day, check the committees - anti-trans bills typically, but not always, get heard in Judiciary or Health and Human Services committees, so check those first. If you see a hearing coming up, please feel free to send me tips via my twitter DMs @erininthemorn. You can also email me via my website. This is essential and extremely helpful for me because anti-trans bills are often snuck in or added at the last minute for debate and passage in order to avoid large numbers of people testifying against the bills.