Doctors and advocates brace for Alabama's 'inhumane' trans health care ban
Zuriel Hooks, who lives in Montgomery, Alabama, started receiving hormones when she was 17 years old. She said getting gender-affirming medical care helped her look forward to the future.
“This is something I know I need in my life,” Hooks, now 19, said. “It really helped shape who I am as a person. It makes me keep going in life. For that to be taken away from me, I can’t describe the feeling, because it’s just horrible.”
A bill being considered by the state Legislature could bar minors — or those 18 and under — from having access to transition-related health care as Hooks did.
The Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act states that sex is something that “cannot be changed” and describes transition-related care as “experimental.” It would bar medical professionals and parents from providing gender-affirming medical care for transgender people younger than 19, and it would carry a felony criminal penalty, which could include a prison sentence of up to 10 years and/or a fine up to $15,000.
In Senate debate this month, the bill’s primary sponsor, Shay Shelnutt, a Republican, said he disagrees with the medical definition of gender dysphoria — which is a conflict between a person’s assigned sex at birth and their gender identity — and said his definition is “someone thinks they should be a girl if they’re a boy or thinks they should be a boy if they’re a girl.” He said the bill seeks to “protect our children” and “stop these surgeries and these drugs on our children.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/doctors-advocates-brace-alabamas-inhumane-trans-health-care-ban-rcna21372
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