Doctors and advocates brace for Alabama's 'inhumane' trans health care ban [View all]
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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