Arkansas has become the first state in the United States to ban transgender people under the age of 18 from receiving gender-confirming treatment or surgery.
Arkansas legislators on Tuesday overrode the Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto to enact the ban. Hutchinson had called the bill “a product of the cultural war in America”. He argued it created “new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters involving young people”.
Pediatricians, social workers, and parents of transgender children have also spoken out against the bill, claiming that it would affect a community already at risk of depression and suicide. Several medical and child protection associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, were against the ban.
The ban also prohibits doctors to provide gender-affirming hormone therapy, puberty blockers, or surgery to someone under the age of 18, or to refer them to other providers for treatment. However, experts believe the therapies are part of an ongoing process that can significantly improve young people’s mental health and even save their lives.
The bill’s supporters rejected medical associations’ objections, comparing the ban to other restrictions imposed by the state on minors, such as banning them from drinking. “They need to get to be 18 before they make those decisions,” said the Republican representative, Robin Lundstrum. They also highlighted the negative consequences of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
With the imposing of the ban the trans youth already receiving treatment will likely to face the immediate risk of being cut off from the treatment. The law will take effect in late July at the earliest.
Before then, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it would file a lawsuit against the bill. “This is a sad day for Arkansas, but this fight is not over – and we’re in it for the long haul,” said Holly Dickson, the ACLU of Arkansas’ executive director, in a statement.
The ban came during a year when bills targeting trans people in Arkansas and other states passed with ease. Arkansas along with Tennessee and Mississippi, recently passed a law banning trans women and girls from competing on girl’s teams.
More than 100 bills targeting the trans community have been filed in statehouses around the country, said the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ rights organization in the US.
At least 20 other states are considering similar trans youth treatment bans.
