Missouri’s legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that would ban gender transition surgeries for any minor. The bill was passed to the governor, who is expected to sign it.
Under the Act, no health care provider shall provide cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to a minor.
A violation of the bill will result in the revocation of the health care provider’s professional license.
The bill also affects adults, as it states that the State’s HealthNet program will not cover gender transition surgeries or drugs. It also states that gender surgeries will not be allowed in prisons and correctional centers.
Another bill bans students who have performed gender surgery from joining girls’ and women’s teams in kindergarten through college, both at public and private schools. Schools that violate the bill would lose state funding.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson is expected to sign both bills.
“When you have kids being surgically and or chemically altered for life for no good reason, yes, it’s time for the government to get involved,” Republican state Rep. Brad Hudson told colleagues on the House floor on Wednesday.
As the bill cleared the Missouri legislature, Kansas City was preparing to defy the state with a City Council vote on Thursday to create legal protections for gender surgery in the city.
Supporters acknowledged that the city could face retaliation from the state.
Missouri’s Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, now campaigning for the 2024 election, launched an investigation in February into St. Louis’ Washington University Transgender Center. A former staffer had complained that doctors were prescribing hormones too quickly and without enough mental health wraparound services.
Bailey has since expanded his investigation to any clinic offering pediatric gender transition procedures in Missouri and demanded records from a St. Louis Planned Parenthood where doctors provide such procedures.
At least 16 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender surgery for minors, and several states are still considering bills this year to restrict or ban surgery. Florida and Texas have banned or restricted surgeries via regulations or administrative orders, and a bill to restrict surgery is on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk.
Oklahoma’s Ban
Oklahoma’s Republican-majority Legislature passed a similar bill in April, banning health care providers from performing transgender procedures or providing gender-altering medication to minors.Doctors are also prohibited from prescribing gender-altering medication for people under 18, such as puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Transgender ‘Treatment’ for Toddlers
Meanwhile, gender clinics affiliated with three North Carolina medical schools are seeing patients as young as 2 for gender dysphoria, according to documents reviewed by The Epoch Times.The medical schools at Duke University, the University of North Carolina (UNC), and East Carolina University (ECU) referenced providing “treatment” for toddlers and grade-school-age children with gender dysphoria on organization websites, in documents, and in news articles.
After information about the programs sparked backlash on social media, all three universities stated that they don’t prescribe cross-sex hormones or provide gender-modification surgery on toddlers.
The medical organizations didn’t deny that their doctors see preschoolers for gender dysphoria.
