Utah governor Spencer Cox on Saturday signed into law a measure banning gender-transition surgery for minors and indefinitely prohibiting hormone treatments for young people, with some exceptions.
The bill bans “hormonal transgender treatment to new patients who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria.”
Senate Bill 16 also requires the state Department of Health and Human Services to conduct “a systematic review of the medical evidence regarding hormonal transgender treatments” and to then provide recommendations to the legislature.
Before signing the measure, Cox had not taken a public position on the bill. The Republican governor said he signed the measure because he believed it was prudent to pause “these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.”
“While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures,” he said.
State Senator Mike Kennedy, a Republican family doctor who sponsored the bill, said government oversight is important for health-care policy on gender and youth and that allowing the gender transition treatments represented “a radical and dangerous push for children to enter this version of health care.”
Last year, Cox vetoed a bill to ban male students from playing girls’ sports. He cited high rates of suicide among transgender youth and concerns that the bill would negatively impact the mental health of transgender children as reasons for the veto. However, the Utah Legislature ultimately overrode the veto.
Cox told the transgender community at the time: “We care about you. We love you. It’s going to be OK.”
Lawmakers in at least 18 states are considering similar measures on gender-transition treatments for minors. More than 70 percent of children with gender dysphoria “typically outgrow” it, City Journal reported earlier this year.
The Florida Board of Medicine and state Board of Osteopathic Medicine voted in November to ban puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgery as treatments for transgender minors in the state.
“The chief point of agreement among all of the experts — and I must emphasize this — is that there is a pressing need for additional, high-quality clinical research,” said the board of medicine’s chair, Dr. David A. Diamond, a radiation oncologist.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Cox also signed a second bill that allocates $42 million in taxpayer funds to give students scholarships to attend schools outside the public education system. The school choice bill also increased teacher pay and benefits in an attempt to address the state’s teacher shortage and to win over critics in the state’s teachers’ union.
“School choice works best when we adequately fund public education and we remove unnecessary regulations that burden our public schools and make it difficult for them to succeed,” Cox said.