Republicans in Tennessee have introduced legislation to ban pediatric transgender treatments.
Introduced by state Rep. William Lamberth and state Sen. Jack Johnson, the Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act would — if approved — ban doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, performing trans-related surgeries on minors, and allow patients and their families to sue doctors, hospitals, and clinics for offering such treatments.
The legislation would also permit courts to impose a $25,000 penalty per violation.
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In a statement, Johnson said, “This bill is about protecting children. Under no circumstances should minors be allowed to undergo irreversible elective procedures to mutilate body parts and intentionally harm their reproductive systems. This practice comes with lifelong health complications that children are not capable of understanding.”
The lawmakers’ interest in the legislation followed viral videos posted in September by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh. As CBN’s Faithwire reported, medical personnel at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) were seen celebrating the hospital’s “transgender clinic,” which opened in 2018, as a “big money maker.”
In one of the clips, purportedly from VUMC, a woman is heard explaining medical staff would administer “gender-affirming hormones” and “pubertal blockers” to minors as young as 13 years old.
Additionally, in an unearthed video from November 2019, Vanderbilt law professor Dr. Ellen Clayton explained to VUMC employees that any staffers with religious objections to transgender-related treatments should face “consequences.”
In October, VUMC paused all transgender-related surgeries on minors due to the backlash.
Walsh addressed the Tennessee proposal on his Twitter account Wednesday afternoon. In response to a critic who accused Walsh of being ineffective, he wrote, “In the last month I took down the child gender clinic at Vanderbilt and got the procedures banned across my entire state.”
Florida lawmakers have passed similar legislation restricting transgender treatments on minors. It is set to go into effect in 21 days, following a public comment period, according to The Washington Post.
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