In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in European health care, away from medicalized gender transitions for minors and back to “watchful waiting.” In Sweden and in the United Kingdom, government-commissioned independent reviews have urged a more cautious and non-interventionist approach. In America, a radical approach to handling these cases has been galloping ahead.
Some state legislatures, though, have taken it upon themselves to impose guardrails. In Arkansas, the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act bans all medicalized gender transitions for minors, everything from puberty blockers to genital surgery. Alabama passed a similar ban (which a federal judge later blocked), criminalizing the facilitation of a child’s medical transition by parents as well as doctors. Florida took a more European route, issuing its ban through its government-appointment medical board.
The latest state to intervene is Utah with legislation called “Transgender Medical Treatments and Procedures Amendments.” It was sponsored by state senator Michael Kennedy, a Republican and a physician, and signed into law — perhaps surprisingly — by Governor Spencer Cox.
The law bans transition surgeries for minors and tightly regulates hormonal transition treatments. Under its provisions, health-care providers will not be able to prescribe transition drugs to new patients with only recent histories of gender dysphoria. The law also “extends the medical malpractice statute of limitations.” And it allows individuals to “bring a medical malpractice action for treatment provided to the individual as a minor if the individual later disaffirms consent.” These are important steps in reintroducing clinical accountability. The statute is moderate in tone and in reach, making it harder for transgender activists to attack it. Its focus is protecting patients, not punishing providers.
Speaking in support of the bill, Governor Cox applauded Senator Kennedy’s “nuanced and thoughtful approach to this terribly divisive issue,” acknowledging that “more and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.”
This marks a shift in Cox’s thinking on the issue. Last year, the governor vetoed a bill that would have prevented males (who identify as females) from participating in girls’ sports. Furthermore, in 2020, while serving as lieutenant governor, Cox worked closely with LGBTQ activists to ban “conversion therapy,” a definition so broad it included “mental health therapy that seeks to change, eliminate, or reduce behaviors, expressions, attractions, or feelings related to a patient or client’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” [Emphasis added]
There are two explanations for Cox’s change of heart. Either he has come to appreciate, as did South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, that anything less than determined opposition to the transgender policy agenda will not be tolerated by Republican voters. Or he has come to appreciate — perhaps by watching the debate unfold in Europe — that the claims of transgender ideology are not as credible, nor as compassionate, as he might have once supposed.