Oklahoma bans gender-affirming care

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Anti-trans laws won’t push Moss Lavender Abla out of Oklahoma. Rather than move away as his parents offered, the 16-year-old trans-youth said he will fight the GOP’s legislative efforts to outlaw genderaffirming care for teens and others.

“I’m most scared for the other kids,” said Abla of Moore. “I have only two years until I’m 18 and can get a lot of this stuff. You know the suicide rates for trans youth goes up a lot when these type of things pass.”

Oklahoma Republican legislators filed 40 bills this session targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Similar bills have been filed in 48 other states.

In Oklahoma, Senate Bill 129 would have created the Millstone Act, which would have cut state funding for health care providers offering gender-affirming care to anyone under age 26. Both private and public insurances also would have been barred from covering gender-transition procedures.

SB 129 is dead for this legislative session.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amended version of the bill by a vote of 14-6 on March 1. It was not heard on the Senate floor by the

But in late April, legislators passed SB 613 banning gender-transition surgeries and hormone therapies for children under age 18. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it into law on May 1. The statute take effect Nov. 1.

The new law prohibits gender-transition procedures, including surgery and “pubertyblocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, or other drugs to suppress or delay normal puberty or to promote the development of feminizing or masculinizing features consistent with the opposite biological sex,” for minors.

Children already taking puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones may continue the treatment until June 1, 2024, solely for the purpose of gradually decreasing and discontinuing use of the drugs or hormones.

Under the new law, providing gendertransition procedures to children is a felony. Health care providers can be prosecuted until the minor turns age 45. They also can have their licenses revoked for “unprofessional conduct.”

The Senate sponsors were Republicans Julie Daniels, David Bullard, Shane Jett, George Burns, Michael Bergstrom, Warren Hamilton, Tom Woods, Cody Rogers, Blake Stephens, Nathan Dahm and Rob Standridge. In the House, Republicans Toni Hasenbeck, David Hardin,

Kevin West, Tom Gann and Denise Crosswhite Hader sponsored the bill.

Jett of Shawnee, who also co-sponsored SB 129, said children need protection from health care providers wanting to make money off them by providing expensive gender-transition surgeries.

As introduced, the Millstone Act would have made it a felony for health care professionals to refer someone under age 26 for gender-transition procedures or to provide the procedure. They could have been prosecuted up to 40 years afterward.

“Child abuse is a felony in our state and mutilating a young person’s genitalia should be viewed no differently,” the bill’s original author, Republican Sen. David Bullard of Durant, said in a press release. “The Millstone Act will hold those who perform child mutilation accountable by making such activity a felony. ”

The criminal penalty was removed from the amended version, but SB 613’s penalties for a violation include felony charges, license revocation and civil actions.

Democratic Sen. Julia Kirt of Oklahoma City, who voted against SB 613, said bills remove the option for parents and their children to get advice from health care professionals.