by Laurel Duggan
Republican Georgia representatives proposed a bill Thursday banning child sex change procedures including surgeries, hormones and puberty blockers, while state senators’ similar February proposal excluded puberty blockers from the ban.
Georgia House Bill 653 bars cross-sex medical interventions for minors and prohibits school employees such as nurses and counselors from withholding information about a child’s gender identity from parents. Senate Bill 140 would ban cross-sex hormones and surgeries for minors, but not puberty blockers.
Sen. Carden Summers, a Republican sponsor of SB 140, said she wanted to see more research on the treatments.
“We’re simply saying we want a wait-and-see approach, a do-no-harm approach,” Summers said, according to Fox News.
The Georgia Democratic party said the bills could harm transgender children.
“Reminder: this is yet another attack from the GA GOP on bodily autonomy and Georgians’ private medical decisions,” Georgia Democrats tweeted Monday. “The GOP would rather target trans kids than actually work to improve Georgians’ lives.”
The House bill would allow those who report violations of the law to seek damages from individuals who violate it, while the Senate bill would only allow violating physicians to be penalized administratively by the state medical board.
If either bill passes, Georgia would become one of several red states to restrict child sex change procedures in recent months amid growing concern over the procedures’ safety and efficacy. Mississippi banned child sex changes Tuesday, and the Tennessee legislature passed a similar bill in February that awaits the governor’s signature; both of those bills banned puberty blockers for minors.
The bill’s six sponsors did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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Laurel Duggan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Carden Summers” by Carden Summers.
