Mississippi Senate Approves Bill to Ban Gender Alteration Procedures on Minors

The Mississippi state flag flies over the Mississippi State Capitol building in Jackson, Miss., on June 28, 2020. Rory Doyle/AFP via Getty Images

The Mississippi Senate has approved a bill banning permanent medical intervention for minors who believe they are experiencing gender dysphoria.

Mississippi House Bill 1125, titled the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures Act,” prohibits physicians in the state from prescribing pharmaceutical and surgical alterations in an attempt to change a child’s gender.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Gene Newman, told The Epoch Times that the bill was written to prevent gender-affirming medical intervention on a child from becoming a standard of care.

Physicians who violate the law will face a revocation of their license. In addition to losing one’s license, the physician and the facility would be liable for complications from the treatments, Newman said, with a 30-year statute of limitations.

He said the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) had a department to alter children pharmaceutically and surgically, but later the center reported to him that the hospital was no longer performing those procedures on minors.

“This would make sure that they don’t,” Newman said.

Supporters of activist Chris Elston demonstrate against gender affirmation treatments and surgeries on minors outside of Boston Children's Hospital in Boston on Sept. 18, 2022. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

The Epoch Times contacted UMMC’s Center for Gender and Sexual Minority Health for comment.

Gov. Tate Reeves, who in 2021 signed a law banning biological male athletes from competing in women’s sports, is expected to sign the bill into law.

The House bill passed in the Senate with a 33–15 vote. On Jan. 19, it passed in the House with a vote of 78–30.

‘Irreversible Physical Changes’

In June 2022, Florida Medicaid issued a report (pdf) stating that the medical literature supporting gender reassignment for children and adolescents was inadequate, while the studies that claim medical intervention benefits their mental health and prevent suicide “are either low or very low quality and rely on unreliable methods such as surveys and retrospective analysis, both of which are cross-sectional and highly biased.”

On Feb. 15, the Mississippi Division of Medicaid said it agreed with the Florida Medicaid report, stating that there is a lack of conclusive evidence to support medical intervention for gender dysphoria in children and adolescents.

“Mississippi Medicaid concurs with Florida Medicaid’s determination that available medical literature provides insufficient evidence that sex reassignment through medical intervention is a safe and effective treatment for gender dysphoria,” said Drew Snyder, executive director of Mississippi Medicaid, in a Feb. 15 statement (pdf).

Snyder added that Mississippi Medicaid concurs that the evidence that is available demonstrates that the treatments cause “irreversible physical changes and side effects that can affect long-term health.”

In 2022, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Oklahoma banned medical procedures on minors who have decided that they aren’t the correct gender.