Republicans in Kentucky have passed Senate Bill 150, which will ban surgeries and hormone therapies on minors for the purpose of gender transitioning.
The bill, which also includes provisions regarding mandatory sharing of information between schools and parents, along with banning forced use of preferred pronouns by teachers in school, has been delivered to Democrat Governor Andy Beshear. According to CNN, Beshear is opposed to the bill; however, a Republican majority can likely overrule the governor's veto.
The bill's text addresses minors and defines sex as "the biological indication of male and female as evidenced by sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth."
It further addresses transgender surgeries and hormonal treatments, saying that a health care provider shall not provide them for the purpose of altering appearances or validating "a minor's perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex."
Health care providers henceforth cannot do any of the following:
"(a) Prescribe or administer any drug to delay or stop normal puberty;
(b) Prescribe or administer testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone, in amounts greater than would normally be produced endogenously in a healthy person of the same age and sex;
(c) Perform any sterilizing surgery, including castration, hysterectomy, oophorectomy [removal of ovaries], orchiectomy [removal of testicles], penectomy, and vasectomy;
(d) Perform any surgery that artificially constructs tissue having the appearance of genitalia differing from the minor's sex, including metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty; or
(e) Remove any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue."
The legislation also allows for civil action from any resulting injuries that stem from violations of the law.
In terms of pronoun usage at schools, the bill says that educators cannot "require or recommend policies or procedures for the use of pronouns that do not conform to a student's biological sex," and local school districts cannot require students or personnel to use preferred pronouns, either.
It is also instructed in the bill that educators shall not require or recommend that schools "keep any student information confidential from a student's parents," saying that schools cannot "adopt policies or procedures with the intent of keeping any student information confidential from parents."
It is important to note that the legislation does not restrict educators from withholding information from parents if it is regarding abuse in the home.
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