Bill targeting treatments for transgender youth dies in Alabama Legislature
Brian Lyman
A bill that would have made it a crime for physicians to prescribe gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth died on the final night of the 2021 regular session Monday.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, was on a calendar but did not come up for a vote before time ran out on the session on Monday evening.
The bill would make it a felony for health care providers to prescribe puberty blockers and hormones to transgender youth under the age of 19. The bill also bans genital surgery on minors (outside circumcision for males). Health care providers say that surgery is never performed on minors.
Shelnutt and other supporters framed the bill as youth protection. The senator suggested at a House committee meeting in March that parents who pursued the treatments could have a "political agenda" in doing so.
Transgender youth, their parents and advocates said the bill reflected a profound misunderstanding of gender dysphoria and said that banning the treatments would put an already at-risk population in further danger.
More:Transgender youth, advocates urge rejection of bill banning medical treatments
The bill is one of several brought by Republicans in state houses around the country this year targeting transgender youth. Gov. Kay Ivey in April signed legislation banning transgender youth from playing sports of the gender with which they identify.
The ACLU of Alabama and Lambda Legal had threatened a lawsuit over the legislation, and greeted the death of the bill with cautious optimism Monday night.
"While the Alabama Legislature avoided passing this poorly designed bill, and we should all celebrate this victory for transgender people, for human rights, and for the state of Alabama, we know that this is not the last attack we will see on the transgender community," Kaitlin Welborn, an attorney for the ACLU of Alabama, said in a statement. "We cannot become complacent."
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.