Utah Lawmakers Continue to Limit Medical Options for Transgender Youth

Utah is one of the states who is trying to limit transgender youth from receiving certain health care options such as hormones, puberty blockers, and surgery.

Lawmakers from Utah lawmakers wasted no time in this week's legislative session to refocus on an issue that has been quite popular in GOP-led statehouses - limiting the medical options that transgender youth can receive from doctors.

The committee is considering preventing minors from acquiring gender-affirming health care like surgery and puberty blockers, which have gained an increasing attack despite being available for more than a decade and in fact, are being endorsed by major medical associations, AP News reported.

Other than the limitations of medical options, lawmakers are also considering requiring schools to inform parents when their children want to change their pronouns and forbidding transgenders under 18 to change the sex information on their birth certificates.

Government's responsibility

Republican family doctor State Sen. Mike Kennedy supports the proposal emphasizing that it does not make sense that health care policies related to gender and youth are beyond government oversight.

It may be an emotional and sensitive topic for the families of transgender youth, but the public needs to understand that issues of children's consent and development are included in the government's responsibility, Kennedy added.

"Caring for our children does not mean riding the latest radical wave. We must ask questions: Does the child understand the long-term ramifications of their decision? We can't allow social policy to outpace science," he further stated as quoted by US News.

Kennedy also argued for more research on gender dysphoria and noted how Finland and Sweden have reinforced stricter regulations on the health care of their transgender youth.

Read Also: Texas AG Says Puberty Blockers a Form of "Child Abuse" But Study Shows Lowered Suicide Risk

'Excessive governmental intervention'

All the proposals highlighting transgender youth coincided with another "growing priority" of Republicans - parental rights.

Transgender woman and member of the Salt Lake County Republican Party Jeri Brummett criticized the proposals calling them "excessive governmental intervention" into an individual's medical choices.

She stated that the proposals are hiding behind the goal to protect transgender minors from their parents and doctors, yet in truth, it is placing the legislature and the government between parents, their children and the doctors.

Greg Walker, parent of a daughter who has identified herself as a transgender "since she could talk," is disheartened on how their health care decisions and doctors have been politicized, sharing how as a family and with their doctors, they have thoroughly deliberated and relied on experts before his daughter went through puberty blockers and estrogen.

According to SC Now, what he is most concerned right now, he emphasized, is the potential harm that the absence of treatment can cause, especially that rates of transgender youth committing suicide is extremely high.

He wants these lawmakers to know that as a parent, his first priority is to take care of his child and make sure she is safe, and they should not question that.

Related Article: California Teen Detransitions, Tells Parents Not to Let Their Kids Go Through it