Senators passed a bill that would ban gender surgery for minors, but they agreed to a change from an earlier version, now allowing treatment with medication under narrowly-tailored circumstances.
The original version of House Bill 2007, “Prohibiting certain medical practices,” focused on irreversible gender-affirming surgery. A revised version also included gender-altering medication.
Senators passed the bill 30-2. An amendment to change the way the bill deals with medicinal treatment was advanced 20-12.
Because the bill was changed, the House of Delegates will have to make a decision on Saturday, the last day of the regular session, about whether to agree.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, cited a range of peer-reviewed medical studies concluding the use of medications in gender dysphoria can lower the risk of depression and suicide.
So his amendment indicates treatment with medication would be allowed:
- if a minor has been diagnosed as suffering from severe gender dysphoria by no fewer than two medical or mental health providers, with at least one having expertise in adolescent medicine
- if they express written opinions that the treatment is medically necessary to limit self-harm or harm to others
- that the minor and the minor’s parents or legal guardians agree
- and, if medications are used, the lowest dose necessary would be used just to help with the mental condition, not for gender alteration.
“I agree that surgery should not be done on these individuals and also agree that there shouldn’t be super physiologic doses of these medicines that you’re just trying to create some type of gender change,” said Takubo, a pulmonologist. “This bill again has very strict guardrails and helps physicians treat individuals in this state for the mental conditions that they have.”
The Senate Health Committee advanced the bill earlier this month following a debate that divided members of the Senate’s Republican majority.
Supporters of the bill pointed generally toward news coverage gender-affirming procedures elsewhere and said the policy is meant to ensure West Virginia doesn’t face growing acceptance of the treatment.
“My problem with continuing hormone therapy as a treatment here is that you do get irreversible effects with it,” said Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, a physical therapist and orthopedic specialist from Putnam County.
“And you have a very social, woke culture driving a lot around a psychological issue. We’re going to switch pronouns our of our text books for our kids.”
Senator Mike Azinger, R-Wood, said it’s plainly clear that the gender treatment is wrong.
“Self-evident truth planted on the heart of man would tell mankind by nature that surgeries to attempt to change the sex would be a fist in the face of the free,” Azinger said.
“It is self-evident that when you block the natural course of a young person that we commonly call puberty, by using puberty blockers — that is self-evidently wrong. That is self evidently dangerous. That is self-evidently common sense that tells you do not do that.”
Critics of the bill have said surgery for minors doesn’t occur in West Virginia because medical providers already have a policy against it. On the issue of treatments such as hormone blockers, critics have said the government is getting in the way of decisions that should be among medical professionals, youths and their families.
Senator Mike Maroney, R-Marshall, voted in favor of the bill but has been critical of its restrictions on medicine. Maroney, a radiologist, observed that he has seen no bills with similar restrictions on treatment for other medical conditions.
“We’re pro-life here, overwhelmingly, in this caucus,” Maroney said. “These kids commit suicide. There’ll be some suicides. Who are we to win an election and start telling people how to practice medicine — to change treatments?
“I don’t think we should legislate drug treatments or cancer treatments or psychiatric treatments or blood pressure treatments. I don’t think we should legislate the standards for how to take an appendix out and legislate how to read an MRI. I don’t understand it.”
Dr. Kacie Kidd, medical director of the Gender and Sexual Development Multidisciplinary Clinic at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital, said earlier today that banning treatment with medication would represent a barrier between physicians and young patients.
“Adolescent gender-affirming care is many things. It is often family support, assistance navigating school and relationships; it is individual and family therapy, and, after puberty has begun, there is consideration for medical therapy, but no medical interventions are recommended or provided to pre-pubertal children,” Kidd said on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“If there is a young person whose family agrees that their severe gender dysphoria could be helped by some of the medications we use, we have extensive conversations about potential risks and benefits of those medical decisions.”
She said the provisions of the bill affecting hormone-based therapy, including puberty blockers, are unwise.
Kidd said those treatments “are fully-reversible ways to help young people and their families have time to determine through mental health supports and other forms of support what the best strategies are for their child, those are the kinds of interventions that would be banned if this legislation does pass as it is currently written.
“And I am speaking to families daily, parents who are West Virginians who love the heck out of their kids and like all of us who are parents want the very best for their young people, and have seen the dramatic improvement that this treatment can have for their young people. I have heard their fear and their worries.”
There is legislation that would prevent gender-affirming surgery on minors. However, it would also prevent specific medical treatments that doctors believe are beneficial to the well-being of a child. Kacie Kidd discusses this legislation with @HoppyKercheval. pic.twitter.com/2mefrVHHlF
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) March 10, 2023