Oklahoma senator pledges to refile legislation to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender people under 21
Story at a glance
- Oklahoma Sen. Warren Hamilton (R) on Monday said he intends to refile legislation he introduced last year that seeks to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender state residents younger than 21.
- Hamilton’s measure would make it a felony – punishable by life imprisonment – to either provide or receive gender-affirming health care.
- Oklahoma’s legislature will reconvene in early February for the 2023 session.
An Oklahoma senator on Monday announced plans to reintroduce legislation that would bar transgender people in the state under 21 years old from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
State Sen. Warren Hamilton (R) in a news release said he intends to revive a bill he filed last year once the legislature meets again in February for the 2023 session. Warren’s original legislation, which sought to make it “unlawful” for Oklahomans younger than 21 to undergo “gender reassignment medical treatment,” never received a hearing.
Hamilton on Monday said the legislation is motivated by a desire to help “preserve the physical and mental health” of young people in Oklahoma who may not fully understand the long-term effects or risks of receiving gender-affirming treatments like puberty blockers or hormones.
America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
“My concern is that these procedures and transitions are life-altering, and this decision shouldn’t be made by those unable to see the long-term effects of such treatments,” Hamilton said. “The problem is, once they become adults, those surgeries and the effects of the hormones cannot simply be undone.”
Hamilton, a conservative Christian who during his 2020 campaign said he believes there are only two genders and abortion is “a slap in the face of God,” added on Monday that he considers providing gender-affirming health care to minors to be child abuse “in every sense of the word.”
“There are even instances of ‘doctors’ performing these ‘treatments’ on children as young as two and three,” he said. Hamilton’s office did not immediately respond to questions from Changing America asking for specific examples of physicians in Oklahoma providing gender-affirming health care to toddlers or infants.
Under Hamilton’s bill, parents who allow their minor children to receive gender-affirming medical care may be convicted of a felony, punishable by life imprisonment and a maximum fine of $20,000. The same punishment would be handed down to physicians that provide gender-affirming medical care to transgender patients in Oklahoma younger than 21 – as well as the patients themselves.
“Adults who force, coerce, encourage, or permit a child to undergo irrevocable surgery or hormonal mangling are guilty of physical, sexual, emotional, and mental child abuse,” Hamilton said Monday. “Oklahoma statute makes provisions for a life sentence in cases of the most egregious child abuse, which this clearly is. Someone who would do this to a child is at best, delusional, and at worst, demonic.”
Hamilton’s announcement comes less than a week after U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced legislation that would make providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
A similar measure was signed into law in Alabama earlier this year and took effect May 8. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking state officials from enforcing the law soon after, ruling that Alabama had not produced any credible evidence that gender-affirming health care is “experimental” and parents – not the states or the federal courts – play the primary role in caring for their children.
Source: TEST FEED1
