Both houses of the Wyoming legislature approved a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth on Thursday. If Gov. Mark Gordon (R) does not veto Senate File 99, the bill will automatically become law within three business days.
“Like all health care, health care for transgender youth is individualized and based on the needs of each particular person,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wyoming said in a statement. “Senate File 99 …would take away private health care choices around the provision of medical care consistent with prevailing medical and scientific standards. Such choices should be made between a doctor and a patient, not politicians.”
Under this bill, doctors and health care practitioners in the state who administer hormonal therapies and puberty blockers to transgender youth could face suspension or revocation of their licenses.
“This bill puts physicians in conflict. Physicians have a sense of confusion, a sense of despair that we may lose our license just because we’re practicing medicine in the way that we think is properly conducted,” Joseph Horam, a pediatrician in the state, testified in a recent committee meeting. “This is affecting physician recruitment in the state of Wyoming. This will be a factor that says, ‘Well, that’s just one less obstacle I want to take on.’”
According to the ACLU, Wyoming is currently advancing multiple anti-LGBTQ bills in the legislature. In addition to Senate File 99, the legislature has also introduced bills that would “out” LGBTQ students to their parents and prohibit government entities from engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. While transgender journalist and activist Erin Reed currently lists the state as “medium risk,” for transgender youth, these bills, if passed, would push the state to “high risk.”
“Across the country and right here in Wyoming, lawmakers are sticking their noses into matters they shouldn’t — specifically health care decisions that have been traditionally reserved for parents,” said Antonio Serrano, ACLU of Wyoming advocacy director. “Anytime policymakers spread lies and misinformation about trans people and their medical care, it’s dangerous. We don’t need a law that substitutes the state’s judgment for that of loving parents who are following the guidance of their children and the advice of doctors.”
If Senate File 99 is signed into law, Wyoming would become the 23rd state to bar transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care, despite gender-affirming care being endorsed by virtually all major medical organizations. In fact, a recent report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics asserts that restricting transgender youth’s access to gender-affirming care “amount[s] to state-sanctioned medical neglect and emotional abuse.”
Research shows that access to gender-affirming care vastly reduces rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation for transgender youth. Additionally, despite far right talking points saying otherwise, a new study found that only 1 percent of transgender youth who receive gender-affirming care later detransitioned, or re-identified with the sex assigned to them at birth.
“The result of legislation like this won’t be that fewer kids grow up to be trans, it will be that fewer kids grow up,” Serrano said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy