Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA) vetoed the Stop Harming Our Kids Act, legislation that would have protected children and teens from transgender hormone drugs and surgeries, claiming “there was never any evidence or testimony” that gender transition surgeries on minors have occurred in Louisiana.
In a six-page letter, dated June 29, to Louisiana House Speaker Clay Schexnayder (R-Ascension), Edwards wrote HB 648 is “punitive,“ “discriminatory,” “part of a targeted assault on children,” and “denies healthcare to a very small, unique, and vulnerable group of children.”
Touting his perceived accomplishments as governor in the area of expanding health care in the state, Edwards asserted, “It is unfathomable to think that in my last few months serving as governor of this state that I would sign into law a bill that categorically denies healthcare for children and families based on propaganda and misinformation generated by national interest groups.”
In his veto of the measure that would prohibit doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children and teens and from surgeries such as removing the healthy breasts of young girls in order to have them appear masculine, the governor focused primarily on surgical procedures in his veto letter, claiming “there were zero gender reassignment surgical procedures performed on children in Louisiana,” between 2017 and 2021, according to the state Department of Health’s Study on Gender Reassignment Procedures on Minors, published March 2023.
The report cited by the governor uses the language of transgender activists, including a “glossary” that designates biological sex as “assigned at birth.”
According to the report, an average of 14.6 percent of minors with gender dysphoria received cross-sex hormones and/or puberty blockers each year between 2017 and 2021, a total of 181 during that period.
The state determined that “psychiatric, or mental health outcomes (e.g., depression, suicidal ideation) improved after treatment and when compared to individuals not treated.”
“Regret or retransition in youth is rare (1% or less) in large cohorts with formal diagnostic procedures after diagnosis of GD and start of treatment,” the report stated, adding, “Not all youth expressing gender diverse thoughts or who self-identify as transgender or nonbinary go on to receive formal diagnosis or start medical treatments.”
Regarding a minor’s ability to give informed consent, the state report notes that, in Louisiana, “a minor can consent to medical care in general without the consent of a parent or guardian.”
“Under the mature minor doctrine, a minor’s age, maturity, and cognitive abilities are weighed when making a judicial determination of whether a minor who is otherwise legally incompetent is sufficiently mature to consent to their own medical care,” the report notes, justifying the “doctrine” by citing establishment pro-transgender medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics which “encourages the involvement of children beginning at age 7, with increasing involvement determined by age, including for those in the transgender population.”
In his veto letter, Edwards also cited the New York Times which, he wrote, “recently reported these children experience attempts of suicide at a rate of seven times higher than other children.”
“Surely the legislature should not prohibit a discussion between a parent, child, and physician regarding an option to take medications just because there could be side effects, when doing so could also prevent a suicide,” he said.
While the Republican supermajority in the state legislature could give the bill a way forward, laws seeking to protect transgender children and teens from life-altering transgender drugs and surgeries have faced difficulties in federal courts that have blocked them with the claim they could violate the 14th Amendment.
“Just as conservative courts have found in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee, I believe that there is no legitimate state interest and no rational basis that justifies harming this very small population of children, their families, and the healthcare who care for them or for the cruel and extreme consequences imposed on children through the overt denial of healthcare by this bill,” Edwards wrote.
HB 648, which passed by a vote of 29-10 in the Louisiana Senate, was resurrected in that chamber after State Senator Fred Mills (R-Acadiana), a former Democrat and a pharmacy owner backed by the pharmaceutical industry, killed the measure in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.
The bill passed in the state House by a vote of 75-25.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Gov. John Bel Edwards” by Gov. John Bel Edwards.
