A bill banning sex reassignment of minors was approved by the Arkansas Senate and sent to the governor on Monday, March 29. If passed, the bill would be the first official law in the United States to prohibit sex change for minors.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson reportedly has five days to consider signing or vetoing it. And if he hasn’t signed it after five days, the bill will automatically become law.
In Republican-controlled Arkansas, the Senate voted 28 to 7 in favor of the bill. Katie Beck, a spokeswoman for Hutchinson, said the governor “will carefully review the bill, listen to the debate, study it and make a decision on the legislation.
The bill (HB1570) is called the “Arkansas Save Minors from Experimentation” Act, or SAFE Act. It prohibits doctors and health care providers from performing sex reassignment surgery on minors under the age of 18 or referring them to other health care providers for surgery.
The bill also prohibits the use of public funds for sex reassignment surgery. “Public funds may not be used, awarded, paid, or distributed, directly or indirectly, to any health care facility, organization, or individual that provides sex reassignment to persons under the age of 18,” the bill reads.
Of course, treatments that do not fall under the transgender umbrella would not be affected by the bill, such as people born with a medically verified disorder of sexual development or with an unidentifiable external sexual characteristic. For example, a physician providing treatment to a person who has virilization of 46 XX chromosomes at birth, or 46 XY chromosomes, or who has both ovaries and testes, would not be affected by the Act.
A second area that would not be affected by the Act includes individuals who have been diagnosed by a physician through genetic or biochemical testing as not having normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or disorders of sexual development due to sex steroid hormone action. They are also not affected by receiving treatment.
The Act also does not affect the treatment of any “infection, injury, disease or disorder” caused or aggravated by prior sex reassignment surgery. This is regardless of whether the surgery was legal at the Time and regardless of whether the funding for the surgery was legal at the time.
Under this bill, physicians who perform sex reassignment surgery on minors, or refer minors for sex reassignment surgery, would be subject to disciplinary action by the appropriate entity or disciplinary review board in the state.
Areas affected by the bill include the prescription of puberty blocking drugs and cross-gender hormones, and genital reassignment surgery. The bill also covers non-genital sex reassignment surgery, including various invasive procedures that alter or remove body parts.
The American Academy of Pediatricians, a conservative group representing 600 physicians and health care professionals, expressed support for the bill. They believe that premature gender affirmation is problematic and can encourage young people to have a transgender orientation. They want to protect children from irreversible surgeries they may later regret and the potential health effects that come with them.
According to the Associated Press, the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Alan Clark, said before the vote, “The purpose of this bill is to protect children, and in an area where they are in great need of protection.”
Sixteen other U.S. states are considering drafting a similar bill, but it has also drawn opposition from some organizations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a left-leaning civil rights advocacy group, said they are likely to file a lawsuit to stop such a bill from being enacted. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents 67,000 pediatricians, has also expressed opposition to the bill.
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