Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to criminalize transgender medical treatment for youth in transition. Adopting some of the most restrictive languages in the country and threatening doctors and nurses with up to 10 years in prison.
Transgender medical treatments: the legislation has already been approved
The legislation was passed as the conservative lawmakers across the country have focused their attention on the transgender people and other topics LGBTQ. They have pursued a series of bills intended to limit what doctors call “gender care.” In addition, they want to ban some transgender students from participating in school sports.
On Thursday, Alabama lawmakers also introduced legislation that would require students to wear bathrooms and locker rooms for sex listed on their original birth certificates. He also added an amendment that restricted classroom discussions of gender and sexuality from kindergarten through fifth grade.
But the bill on medical care It has become one of the most far-reaching. Since it would make it a felony to prescribe hormones or puberty-blocking drugs or perform surgery for gender extension.
The measures have been condemned by the transgender community
Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has not said whether she will sign the legislation. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The measures have been condemned by the transgender communityas well as by the medical establishment. In recent years, other states have considered, and in some cases advanced, having legislation intended to prevent doctors and nurses provide care of gender importance to young people. Although none have fallen into a serious crime.
Critics of the Alabama bill also contend that it could prompt legislators of other states to apply such restrictions.
“It’s an attempt to instill fear, but it’s inciting other states to go to very extreme lengths.” Said Shelby Chestnut, director of policy and programs at the Transgender Law Center.
The decisive ones of the legislation, called “Compassion and Protection for Vulnerable Children Act”, maintain that the measure was intended to protect children. In the bill, the sponsors argued that:
“Minors, and often their parents, may not fully understand and appreciate the risk and life implications, including permanent sterility, resulting from the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures.”
“Their brains are not developed to make long-term decisions about what these drugs and surgeries do to their bodies.” Wes Allen, the Republican lawmaker who introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives, said during debate on the bill Thursday.
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