Louisiana House approves youth gender-affirming care ban amid rise in anti-LGBTQ+ bills

Louisiana House approves youth gender-affirming care ban amid rise in anti-LGBTQ+ bills
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Amid an onslaught of culture-war legislation locally and nationally, the Louisiana House on Tuesday approved a hotly debated ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth — an effort that had died in earlier sessions without getting a hearing. 

Pollock Republican Gabe Firment’s House Bill 648 would ban forms of gender-affirming care ranging from puberty blockers to surgical procedures. It earned a 71-24 vote in the House, with most Republicans voting in favor and most Democrats voting against it. 

It now moves to the Senate, as have several bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ+ residents. If approved, the Louisiana Legislature would join other Republican-led legislatures around the country that have passed such laws. If it makes it to his desk, Gov. John Bel Edwards could still veto the bill; lawmakers would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override a veto. 

Underscoring a tension playing out in the Republican Party over efforts to regulate gender and sexual identity, Firment said that while he holds parents’ rights to care for kids sacrosanct, he believes gender-affirming care is so harmful that government has a duty to intervene. 

“No one in Louisiana has a right to harm a child,” he said.

Democratic lawmakers, plus Republican Rep. Joe Stagni of Kenner and Rep. Joe Marino of Gretna, who is politically independent, asked if Firment was aware of statistics showing that gender-affirming care helps reduce suicide for transgender youth.

Stagni, one of few Republicans to openly oppose the bill, suggested Firment was being disingenuous about his motivations for bringing the legislation.

“We wanted parental consent. After two years of counseling, which is the standard of care, then and only then they could prescribe hormones,” he said, referring to an amendment previously killed in a committee hearing. “You didn’t like that.”

Gender-affirming is rare and difficult to access in Louisiana, according to committee testimony throughout the session and a report issued by the Louisiana Department of Health earlier this year. That report found that no doctors in the state performed gender-affirming surgeries for Medicaid-enrolled youth in a five-year period starting in 2017.

Yet transgender issues have figured prominently in legislative debates in recent years as such lawmaking has been a tool for far-right politicians to engage their base.

Edwards triumphed in a fight over one of those bills in 2021, when lawmakers tried and failed to reverse his veto of a bill that would have barred transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. However, he signed the same bill into law last year facing a likely override.

Firment’s bill is one of several under consideration in the Legislature this session that deal with sexual and gender identity in ways that critics argue will harm LGBTQ+ people.

In a committee hearing on his measure earlier this month, many of the bill’s supporters cited false statistics, doctors told the committee, such as a claim that as many as 90% of people who receive gender-affirming care later detransition. Though estimates vary, the real figure is much smaller — ranging from 1%, according to several behavioral health workers who testified against the bill, to 13%, per a 2021 study published in the National Library of Medicine.

Firment argued on the House floor Tuesday that Planned Parenthood, the prominent reproductive health organization, is trying to “replace revenue” the group has lost since the overturning of Roe v. Wade ushered in Louisiana’s abortion ban last summer by selling puberty blockers. He called the practice of selling those drugs “extremely lucrative.” 

Planned Parenthood does not provide gender-affirming health care for transgender youth, a spokesperson for the organization’s Gulf South branch said in a statement. 

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About Mary Weyand 15921 Articles
Mary founded Scoop Tour with an aim to bring relevant and unaltered news to the general public with a specific view point for each story catered by the team. She is a proficient journalist who holds a reputable portfolio with proficiency in content analysis and research. With ample knowledge about the Automobile industry, she also contributes her knowledge for the Automobile section of the website.

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