A proposal in Oregon that would require insurance coverage for transgender changes without requiring coverage for those who change their minds to “detransition” has outraged some state lawmakers.
Even more upsetting to the lawmakers is that the measure would allow children to “transition” without requiring parental knowledge and consent.
“I’ve got transgender people who think it’s crazy what we’re doing to kids” who aren’t happy with their biological sex and want to make an aesthetic change, Diehl said.
“Lesbians, gay men, just hardcore leftists—these are all Oregonians. And they’re saying this is crazy. This makes no sense to be doing this to our children.”
If enacted, the measure would allow abortion for children of any age without parental knowledge and also make Oregon a sex-change surgery sanctuary state for minors.
“They could have written this so many different ways to acknowledge what parents believe they have a constitutional right for, which is to direct the care and upbringing of their child,” Diehl told The Epoch Times. “But they wrote it without any consideration of that at all.”
The proposal states that “gender-affirming treatment” means a “procedure, service, drug, device, or product that a physical or behavioral health care provider prescribes to treat” when a person’s “gender identity” and “sex assignment at birth” are different.
The bill mandates that health benefit plans may not “deny or limit coverage” for “gender-affirming treatment.” However, the bill’s text doesn’t mandate coverage for people who want to undo their sex-change surgeries and treatments.
Meaningless Definition
Because of that, Diehl asked in April for an amendment to the bill.In response, the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services sent him a letter saying that Oregon law defines “gender identity” as “an individual’s gender-related identity, appearance, expression or behavior, regardless of whether the identity, appearance, expression or behavior differs from that associated with the gender assigned to the individual at birth.”
The definition is so broad, it’s meaningless, he said.
“In one case, they’re saying the incongruence is between how you feel and your biology,” Diehl said. “And in the other case, the incongruence is between how you appear and your biology.”
He proposed an amendment to the bill covering health care for detransitioners, but House Democrats voted it down, he said. committee chair Rep. Rob Nosse, a Democrat, also opposed the measure, according to Diehl.
Parental Notification
On transgenderism and abortion, HB 2002 puts parents out of the loop, Diehl said.“A minor of any age may give consent, without the consent of a parent or guardian of the minor, to receive reproductive health care information and services,” the bill reads.
The bill suggests that children as young as 15 could choose to be sterilized.
“‘Reproductive health care’ does not include the voluntary sterilization of a minor under 15 years of age,” the bill reads.
The bill is especially troubling because it may help cloak sex trafficking or other sexual abuse, Diehl said. Most 10-year-old girls aren’t getting pregnant because they’re interested in having sex, he said.
“Let’s say you’re a young girl—you’re being trafficked and sexually abused [and] your abuser brings you in and tells you, ‘Tell them exactly what they want to hear, [that] my 14-year-old boyfriend got me pregnant.’ And they go in, and they have an abortion,” he said.
Nothing in the bill requires an investigation if a very young girl gets pregnant and wants an abortion, and that’s a problem, Diehl said.
HB 2002 would also allow children as young as 15 to make medical decisions on transgender surgery without parental knowledge or consent. The law would allow children to use their parents’ insurance for the procedures.
“The age of medical consent in Oregon is 15,” Diehl said. “A 15-year-old is not in a position to provide informed consent on medications and surgeries that are permanently life-altering.”
Finally, the bill guts parental rights in other states, he said.
Transitions Funded by Taxpayers
The Oregon Health Authority reported that 7,842 people have received sex-change treatments in 2022 from Medicaid insurance, paid with state and federal taxpayers’ dollars, according to an email to Diehl reviewed by The Epoch Times.In 2022, 1,218 of those sex-change patients were younger than the age of 18. The cost of care was more than $2.3 million, an Oregon Health Authority report shows.
There’s one place that the bill offers parents the ability to do whatever they want, Diehl said.
Partisan Battle
Of 37 Democrats in the state House, 22 sponsored the bill, while all 17 Democrats in the Senate sponsored the proposal. But Republican senators are trying to stop its passage.Oregon’s legislative bodies require two-thirds of their members to be present for legislation to be approved. So to block a vote, Republicans walked out of the state Senate on May 3, Diehl said.
Fourteen days later, 12 Republican senators have refused to return to the chamber, putting all legislative business on hold.
“Unfortunately, what has happened is the law that passed in 1979, at some point stopped being followed,” Sen. Tim Knopp, a Republican and the state Senate minority leader, said at a press conference. “Not following a law is not an excuse for continuing to break the law.”
Knopp didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
While most Oregon laws fail to pass that readability test, Diehl said, the boycott is about stopping HB 2002.
