Bill banning trans treatment advances

BOISE — After emotional debate, the House voted on a near-party-line vote Tuesday to pass a bill that would make it a felony to provide most transgender treatment to youth younger than 18.

Rep. Matt Bundy, R-Mountain Home, was the only Republican to vote against the measure.

HB 71’s sponsor, Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said the legislation is “about protecting children.” The bill’s opponents said it would harm transgender children by preventing them from receiving treatment that’s recommended by many major medical associations.

Skaug argued common treatments for gender dysphoria — including sex reassignment surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy — could sterilize adolescents if used for long periods of time.

“Why would we allow them, in this tender state of mind that is under 18, to make decisions on having healthy body organs removed? And really a lot of this is based on what the child’s feelings and thoughts are that are going forward on these procedures,” Skaug said. “That’s the wrong way to approach it scientifically.”

Skaug passed similar legislation through the House last year by a similar margin, but it died in the Senate.

Rep. Colin Nash, D-Boise, said the content of HB 71 was inconsistent with his family’s experience with his transgender sibling.

“The surgeries that are put forth there are not something that I saw in the standard of care for my own sibling,” Nash said. “Largely, that care is helping the child feel understood and accepted and helping them to a place where they can safely make these decisions on their own.”

The Democrats who debated against the bill made the argument that the sex reassignment surgeries that the bill bans are not being performed on children in Idaho. Rep. Chris Mathias, D-Boise, said in the two years he’s been looking into the issue, he hasn’t found a provider in the state who has performed surgery to treat gender dysphoria.

“It doesn’t happen here,” Mathias said.

He argued the bill would not only take away the hormone and puberty blocker treatment that is recommended by most major medical societies — including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society — but it would disincentivize physicians from practicing in Idaho.

“Our increasing tendency to criminalize standard medical practices is driving health care providers away from Idaho,” Mathias said. “We need to be drawing them to Idaho. This bill directly undermines policy and other investments that we’ve made in increasing the number of medical residencies here in Idaho so that we have a pipeline of people to treat us ... it’s bad for all of us.”

He and others who opposed the bill also argued it took away parental rights, something that’s usually held in high regard in the Idaho Legislature.

Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, said she is a strong supporter of parents’ rights to direct the “care, custody and upbringing” of their child, but that has limits; she pointed to laws against child abuse.

“There is no one else that is better suited to make a decision about what is right for a particular child than the parent,” Young said, “and I support that principle whole-heartedly. I also believe that there are circumstances where even a parent does not have authority.”

She said sex reassignment surgeries could “remove healthy sexual function but we can never recreate the sexual function of the opposite sex.”

“Ultimately, this transition can never go deeper than the skin,” she said.

Rep. Lori McCann, R-Lewiston, said she was very conflicted about the bill. She agreed that surgery should be prohibited for those under 18, but she wished the legislation didn’t also ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

She said one of her family members is transgender, and she recently met with a group of parents of trans children and one trans teenager.

“The transgender people I’ve chatted, they agree that 18 is even young to have the surgery … however, there (were) tears, there (were) very uncertain futures that they also shared with me, that if they were not allowed to have the medications necessary to help them on their journey, that it would be devastating for them.”

She said she was concerned parents would turn to alternative means to find their children some of these medications. She also said the bill didn’t follow the party’s platform of honoring parental rights, but she ultimately voted yes because she agreed with the surgery aspect of it.

Skaug said that gender dysphoria is often accompanied by mental illnesses or trauma that should be addressed through talk therapy before these gender-confirming treatments are sought out. He also said that while the trans population does have a much higher rate of suicide and suicidal ideation, he did not see enough evidence that going through this treatment prevents this.

“This is not a religious crusade on this bill, this is following the science,” Skaug said.

Several parents of transgender children testified during the committee hearing on the bill that they didn’t believe their children would still be alive if they hadn’t sought out care.

Assistant House Minority Leader Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, said the claims made about dangers of puberty blockers were inaccurate, pointing to their longtime use to treat what’s called precocious puberty, or when puberty occurs too early in children.

Necochea added that she’s encountered “trolls” who claim that because she opposes the bill that she must support “surgeries on 5-year-olds.”

She pushed back, saying that there aren’t these types of surgeries being performed on young people and no one supports that.

“I can live with the attacks,” Necochea said. “What I can’t live with is one person, one single young person, taking their life because they couldn’t get the care that they need.”

The final vote tally on the bill was 58-12; it now goes to the Senate.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.

How local lawmakers voted

>> Yes — Lori McCann, R-Lewiston; Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow.