West Virginia’s legislature passed a bill Friday banning “transgender” surgical procedures and drugs being prescribed to children.
The bill, which passed the state Senate 30-2, is headed to Gov. Jim Justice’s (R) desk for a signature. However, Justice has not taken a public stance on the bill.
The House version of the bill passed 84-10.
If Justice signs the bill, West Virginia will join a growing number of states halting the irreversible, medically dubious treatment for children.
West Virginia’s bill would ban persons under the age of 18 from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgeries.
However, the bill does make significant exceptions for children to receive medical interventions if they are at risk for suicide. Children who are approved to receive the interventions are required to have a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from at least two mental health or medical providers.
Children allowed to receive the drugs must receive the lowest possible dosage, so as to “treat the psychiatric condition and not for purposes of gender alteration.”
The prescribing providers must also have requisite training to make such a determination and provide written evidence that the interventions are necessary. In addition, written parental consent for the interventions would be required.
According to a 2017 study done by UCLA Law’s The Williams Institute, West Virginia has the highest per capita rate of “transgender”-identifying children in the country.
Many medical professionals in western Europe have sounded the alarm on the “gender affirming care” model of treatment, arguing it can cause irreversible physical and psychological harm.
As Breitbart News reported, the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) is warning that children who believe they are transgender are merely going through a “phase,” and doctors should encourage them against using preferred pronouns or other names.
While British doctors are placing strict bans on puberty blocker prescriptions and even shutting down a transgender clinic for being “not safe” for children — and replacing therapists with medical doctors — the American medical establishment and federal government are pushing full steam ahead on supporting childhood gender transitions.
The NHS England report even warned against social transition — changing names, pronouns, and wearing clothes associated with the opposite sex — saying that such actions are not “neutral” and in fact have “significant effects” on “psychological functioning.”
Despite this, the American medial associations push heavily for the controversial model, and are cited often by Democrats and other “affirmation” model activists as worthy authorities, while they refuse to answer the claims of their European counterparts.
Those organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Pediatricians, the Endocrine Society, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.