KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers are introducing another bill to ban gender-affirming procedures in the state.
In the previous legislative session, lawmakers introduced a bill known as the "Youth Health Protection Act" that stalled. The bill aimed to ban gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapy for minors by imposing penalties on medical providers providing the procedure.
The new bill filed on Nov. 9, HB/SB0001, similarly aims to ban gender-affirming medical procedures from being performed on minors if they are "inconsistent with the minor's sex" or if the procedure is to treat "purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity." This includes procedures involving surgery and prescription drugs.
The proposed law would not apply if the procedure is to treat a "minor's congenital defect, disease or physical injury" or if the procedure began before the act took effect.
The bill would also open the door for parents or guardians to file wrongful death lawsuits against healthcare providers who provided gender-affirming procedures to minors if the child died as a result of "physical or emotional harm" from the procedure and the parent did not consent beforehand.
If passed, the proposed law would take effect on July 1, 2023.
In recent years, Tennessee's Republican majority has introduced a slew of anti-transgender legislation. Some of the bills were passed and signed into law, but many were later blocked by federal judges as lawsuits worked their way through the court system.
In October, Vanderbilt University Medical Center agreed to pause gender-affirming surgery on transgender youth after receiving backlash on social media from Conservative commentators and politicians, according to state leaders. Administrators had pushed back against the backlash and false claims of "chemical castration," saying the posts had misrepresented the facts of the care the clinic formerly provided.
“VUMC began its Transgender Health Clinic because transgender individuals are a high-risk population for mental and physical health issues and have been consistently underserved by the U.S. health system,” it said.
The Tennessee bill filed for introduction Wednesday echoed the claims on social media, such as "medical procedures are being performed on and administered to minors in this state with rapidly increasing frequency," and that healthcare providers sough to perform such surgeries because they "are huge money makers."
In a letter regarding their decision to pause the surgeries, VUMC said since 2018, an average of five minors per year had received gender-affirming surgical procedures. It said all of them had parental consent and were at least 16 years old.
The bill also named Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, saying it had become one of the largest administrators in the state for gender-affirming procedures. In early 2022, Planned Parenthood said it helped 712 people get gender-affirming hormone treatments. The organization said it only helps adults or minors as young as 16 years old if they have parental consent.