Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency regulation on transgender medical interventions for minors, telling Breitbart News, “We are on offense” and leaving “no stone unturned” in the defense of children.
“In an effort to protect children and enforce the laws as written, I am issuing an emergency regulation clarifying that, because gender transition interventions are experimental, Missouri law already prohibits performing them in the absence of specific guardrails,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey stated in a tweet posted on Monday afternoon.
In an effort to protect children and enforce the laws as written, I am issuing an emergency regulation clarifying that, because gender transition interventions are experimental, Missouri law already prohibits performing them in the absence of specific guardrails.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) March 20, 2023
A press release explained why the emergency regulation was implemented, remarking that “because gender transition interventions are experimental, they are covered by existing Missouri law governing unfair, deceptive, and unconscionable business practices, including in administering healthcare services.
“The regulation is necessary due to the skyrocketing number of gender transition interventions, despite rising concerns in the medical community that these procedures are experimental and lack clinical evidence of safety or success,” it asserted.
The emergency regulation requires providers to disclose specific information about the various medical interventions, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment. Providers will also be mandated to provide full psychiatric assessments.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey spoke with Breitbart News, explaining that he will leave “no stone unturned” in the fight to defend children from transgender medical interventions.
The emergency regulation comes after whistleblower Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Clinic, said she was “struck by the lack of formal protocols for treatment,” leaving physician co-directors as the “sole authority.”
Bailey told Breitbart News, “We demanded a moratorium on the procedures at that clinic,” but said that it was refused. The Attorney General’s office then went on to find that “[t]here are clinics all over the state of Missouri providing these kinds of dangerous experimental procedures and recommending puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and ultimately surgery in the place of psychiatry and psychology.”
“When we were alerted that the moratorium was refused, we had to step up and take action to protect children,” Bailey added before noting that he’s proud to be “standing in the gap on behalf of the State of Missouri to protect kids from these kinds of dangerous and experimental procedures” while state legislators consider a bill.
Bailey also delved into the scope of his action, telling Breitbart News, “We’re on offense on all fronts. We marshaled state resources, we’re looking at licensure penalties, we’re looking at Medicaid fraud penalties. We’re looking at consumer protection issues.”
“We’re not finished yet … this is a multifaceted, multi-pronged approach. … It’s worth doing because kids are worth protecting,” Bailey affirmed.
Meanwhile, the press release explained the regulation in detail, noting, “Because gender transition interventions are experimental, the regulation clarifies that state law already prohibits performing experimental procedures in the absence of specific guardrails.”
These guardrails include numerous “specific informed-consent disclosures,” which include telling patients that “the use of puberty blocker drugs or cross-sex hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria is experimental and is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration,” as well as that “[t]he FDA has issued a warning that puberty blockers can lead to brain swelling and blindness,” among other information.
Medical interventions that seek to change a patient’s gender will be prohibited in certain instances as well, such as when a provider fails to “obtain and keep on file informed written consent” or “ensure that any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved.”
These interventions will also be prohibited if the medical provider fails to:
ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions over the course of not fewer than 18 months to determine, among other things, whether the person has any mental health comorbidities.
Bailey told Breitbart News that, in the event that providers violate these regulations, they will face legal proceedings. “People are going to adhere to the law or they’re going to end up in court,” Bailey explained.
He went on to explain, “We have statutes on the books that allow us to enforce the regulations, the Missouri Supreme Court has affirmed our authority in this space to both promulgate the rules and enforce the rules, and certainly we have not only the power of statute behind us, but the power of the court.”
He also told Breitbart News, “We’ve uncovered a shadowy … conspiratorial program for treatments, clandestine, shadowy program of clinics operating across the state of Missouri,” before adding, “They’re growing in number and they’re inducing kids into … questioning their gender, and then promoting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and ultimately surgery in place of psychiatry and psychology.”
“Why aren’t we talking to these kids first, and why aren’t we tracking the assessment of the negative impact of the treatments? I mean, there’s all sorts of problems that necessitate not only our emergency rule, but ultimately legislation,” Bailey added.
The move from Missouri Attorney General Bailey comes as several states have taken action to defend children from transgender ideology.
In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee recently signed legislation banning the use of sex change operations, cross-sex hormone treatment, and puberty blockers on minors. He also signed legislation banning drag performances on public property and in the presence of children.
In Kentucky, lawmakers in the State House passed a bill to prohibit healthcare professionals from attempting to medically transition minors, which would “require an investigation of any report of provision of gender transition services to a person under the age of 18 years” and also “require revocation of the provider’s license if confirmed and termination of public funding for a public employee.”
Meanwhile, Iowa’s State Senate passed legislation that would bar students from using bathrooms that don’t correspond with their biological sex. In addition, Wyoming recently became the 19th state to ban men from women’s sports.
Attorney General Bailey called on leaders in other states to take action to defend children from transgender medical interventions, remarking “The eyes of history are upon us,” and adding, “How we as a society, how we as Republicans, how we as parents, deal with this issue today will be judged by subsequent generations, and this is a fight worth making.”
Bailey went on to tell Breitbart News, “Protecting kids is always worth the effort, and we need to get creative and use every legal recourse we have available to us to stand up and protect kids from this kind of predatory left-wing ideology masquerading as medicine.”
WATCH: Rachel Levine Pushes Doctors, Pediatricians to Be “Proactive” “Ambassadors” for Trans Ideology
Pitt Department of Pediatrics / YouTubeSpencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com
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