More ‘anti-trans’ measures rolled into ban on gender-affirming care. What’s in the bill?
House Bill 470 passed the House last week as a ban on the prescription of puberty-blocking hormones, gender re-assignment surgery, and inpatient and outpatient gender-affirming hospital services for any Kentuckian under age 18.
By Tuesday morning, the bill from Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Shelbyville, that passed the House last week had been stuffed to include the contents of two more anti-LGBTQ bills that regulate the treatment of students in school and curriculum related to human sexuality.
Decker’s original House Bill 470 seeks to outlaw the standard of care medical treatment for underage kids and teenagers with gender dysphoria — a proposal half a dozen Kentucky health care providers have publicly warned will severely impact trans youth. Provision of these services, under the bill, would be deemed “unethical and unprofessional.”
The version of Decker’s bill approved by the Senate Families and Children Committee Tuesday morning also now includes House Bill 177 from Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, limiting K-12 instruction on sexual identity. The whole of Republican Sen. Max Wise’s controversial Senate Bill 150, has also been stitched into the bill, which would bar schools from requiring or recommending that teachers use a trans student’s personal pronouns.
Cramming all three bills into one omnibus proposal is the latest attempt by the Republican supermajority this session to regulate the treatment of LGBTQ youth in Kentucky. Co-sponsors and some proponents of these bills categorize them as necessary steps toward protecting the state’s children from a culture pushing a “woke” agenda.
Here’s what House Bill 470 now includes:
- A ban on all gender-affirming health care and “gender transition services” for trans kids and teenagers in Kentucky. That care includes genital and non-genital reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, and mental health services that “promote gender transition.” Doctors who violate risk a loss of license. The statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit against a health care provider suspected of violating the law would span 30 years.
- A ban on Medicaid reimbursements or Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits for coverage of any gender transition services on minors.
- A ban on “any child, regardless of grade level” receiving presentation or instruction “studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.” That provision mirrors language introduced by Rep. Baker in House Bill 177.
- A requirement that schools develop a bathroom policy that protects students’ “privacy rights” as outlined in a section that condemns allowing trans students to use a bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. That section does not mandate that schools or districts ban trans students from using a bathroom that corresponds with their identity, but strongly suggests they should.
- A ban on any child in fifth grade or below from receiving “any instruction through curriculum or programs on human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases.” That provision mirrors language introduced in House Bill 177.
- A requirement that schools develop policies to “notify a parent in advance and obtain the parent’s written consent” before a child in sixth grade or above is taught about human sexuality or STDs.
- The entire text of Senate Bill 150, Wise’s bill prohibiting schools from requiring or recommending that teachers use a trans student’s preferred pronouns, as well established requirements for schools to notify parents about curriculum related to “human sexuality, contraception, or family planning.” Likewise, schools would have to notify parents of their right to “withhold consent or decline” their child participate in that curriculum.
Districts do not generally require that school personnel use specific pronouns for students, but they have issued guidance on best practices. The Kentucky Department of Education in September distributed in an information sheet titled, “Considerations for Using Student Preferred Names.” In it, KDE says it is “best practice” to, as a general rule, “recognize students using the name that most closely aligns with their identity.”
Under the bill, courts would also be barred from approving a minor’s name change, “if the court finds that the purpose of the requested name change is to assist a person . . . with a gender transition.”
The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice would also be required to classify the sex of all minor detainees correspondingly with their gender assigned at birth, even if they are trans.
As far as school policies go, the bill would keep the Kentucky Board of Education and Department of Education from requiring or recommending that a local school district “keep any student information confidential from a student’s parents.”
It also bans instruction of any kind of human sexuality or STDs as well as the ban on “studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation” is not dissimilar from the Florida law derided by some as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. That law barred discussion on “sexual orientation or gender identity” in Kindergarten through third grade.
The committee substitute goes further than the Florida law, banning any instruction “on human sexuality” until sixth grade. A ban on “studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation” extends to all grades.
This story was originally published March 14, 2023 at 8:18 AM.
