Tennessee State Senator Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) said he expects his amendment that would ban state funds from being used to pay for gender hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery for prisoners incarcerated in the Tennessee Department of Correction to pass “overwhelmingly.”
Roberts’ amendment, filed Friday, comes as The Tennessee Star reported that 89 prisoners currently incarcerated in the Tennessee Department of Corrections are receiving gender hormone therapy.
The amendment would forbid the Department of Corrections from using state funds to “administer hormone replacement therapy” or “sex reassignment surgery” for state inmates incarcerated in a state penitentiary, county jail, or workhouse.
Roberts said he believes the amendment will “overwhelmingly” pass the Tennessee General Assembly as it is perceived as “common sense.”
“I’m gonna tell you something. This is my prediction: I think it will pass and pass overwhelmingly. Ninety percent of Tennessee will be in favor of this,” Roberts said on Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “There’ll be a very vocal, minority group of people that’ll push back. Most people see it as common sense.”
“I know it’s going to be controversial, but I just think from a policy standpoint, should taxpayers in Tennessee be paying for incarcerated individuals who are suffering from gender dysphoria? Should we be paying for hormone therapy replacement? Should we be paying for sex reassignment? To me, the answer is no. We’ll put it up for a vote. We’ll see what the General Assembly says,” Roberts added.
If passed, the amendment would not apply to the state inmates currently receiving gender hormone therapy.
To this, Roberts said the amendment is focused on setting a “precedent” by cutting off any possibilities for inmates to receive sex reassignment surgeries in the meantime, explaining how the conversation surrounding the inmates currently on the hormone therapy is a “conversation for another day.”
“It’s hard to put somebody on therapy and then you can get into obvious medical issues or complications by just saying, ‘Stop, we’re not going to do that now.’ So honestly, that’s a much more difficult fight to get into. Should we get into that? That’s a conversation for another day,” Roberts explained. “For right now, the key thing was we wanted to cut off the possibility that somebody could have sex reassignment surgery in the meantime, and then we set a precedent for Tennessee to follow. Again, it’s not happened yet. So let’s outlaw it before it does happen.”
“This is one of those things that just needs to be nipped in the bud,” Roberts added.
Roberts said Frank Strada, the current commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, was unaware of the unpublicized policy—which dates back to the Haslam administration—but has been on board with efforts to address the issue.
“[Strada] has been excellent to work with. We told him that we were going to do this and he has been completely understanding that this is our role to do – we’re the ones that are charged with the responsibility for legislative oversight and passing the law. I’ve got nothing but good to say about him,” Roberts said.
In regards to inmates suffering from gender dysphoria, Taylor said the condition has “traditionally been recognized as a mental illness,” which can be treated through therapy and psychotropic medication.
“What you can do from a mental health standpoint is…provide therapy and you can provide psychotropic medication…We’re not preventing that because if somebody suffers from gender dysphoria, to me, that’s a much more prudent path to take because, to me, that ought to be the first thing that happens anyway,” Roberts said.
“Now, I know, in today’s world there’s a lot of people that want to skip that step, but to me, before you undergo hormone replacement therapy or just sex reassignments, it just seems to me that the smart thing to do would be to try therapy first and see how that works. So that’s not forbidden, but as far as signing up new people for hormone therapy or even considering sex reassignment surgery, that’s what the bill would prevent,” Roberts added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
