Bill Banning Doctors From Providing Medical Treatment to Help Children Transition Passes State Senate

Thursday, October 19th, 2023 -- 10:01 AM

(Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) A bill that would ban doctors from providing medical treatment to help children transition to a gender that matches their identity is heading to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has promised to veto the Republican-backed bill.

According to Molly Beck with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, all Republican lawmakers in the state Senate voted Tuesday in favor of the bill, which bars children from receiving certain medical procedures aimed at changing their biological sex and from receiving puberty-blocking drugs.

All Democrats voted against the bill. The bill is part of a trio of legislation introduced this year aimed at putting restrictions on transgender youth. Two bills that would bar transgender students from participating in girls and women's sports in high school and college passed in the state Assembly last week, but a Senate committee has yet to hold a public hearing.

Groups representing pediatricians, school social workers and other medical groups urged lawmakers to reject the bill, citing its effect on transgender children's mental health if enacted.

About a dozen organizations registered in opposition to the bill, including Disability Rights Wisconsin, Fair Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Public Health Association and the Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards.

The only group registered in favor of the bill is the conservative Wisconsin Family Action. The coalition is composed of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Medical Society, the Wisconsin chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Medical College of Wisconsin, UW Health and the Wisconsin section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The bill would bar health care providers from conducting or making referrals for certain medical practices for youth under age 18 "if done for the purpose of changing the minor's body to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the minor's biological sex," according to a summary from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

There are no criminal penalties outlined in the legislation, but violations would result in a mandatory license revocation. The legislation specifies several treatments that would be banned, and also lays out exceptions.

Under the bill, health care providers could not administer to minors: a surgery that results in sterilization, a mastectomy, puberty-blocking drugs, testosterone for youth assigned female at birth, estrogen for youth assigned male at birth, and removal of "any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue"

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