Bills restricting transgender medicine in Oklahoma clear first hurdle

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Two of the multiple bills restricting the practice of transgender medicine also called gender-affirming care by proponents cleared their first legislative hurdle.

Monday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) asked lawmakers to send him a bill banning transgender medical procedures from being performed on minors, and Wednesday, the Oklahoma State Senate Rules Committee passed two bills on the subject out of committee by a vote of 16-2.

“We must protect our most vulnerable – our children,” Stitt said. “Minors can’t vote, can’t purchase alcohol, can’t purchase cigarettes. We shouldn’t allow a minor to get a permanent gender-altering surgery in Oklahoma. That’s why I am calling on the legislature to send me a bill that bans all gender-transition surgeries and hormone therapies on minors in the state.”

The Senate Rules Committee passed SB613 and SB129 Wednesday morning.

SB613 makes it illegal for a medical professional to perform surgeries altering a child’s gender and also restricts the use of medications associated with gender transitions currently being used in children such as puberty blockers.

State Sen. Julie Daniels (R-Bartlesville) authored the bill and said it did not deal with mental health care and discussions about gender, and any medical professional dealing with a child who has these feelings can still be given medication for depression and anxiety.

“We are talking about irreversible, medical transitions in children under the age of 18, and we in this state believe we need to hit the pause button on this and allow these children to mature,” Daniels said.

Democrats pushed back on the bill saying it takes away a parent’s right to seek proper medical care for their children even from a doctor the child has been seeing all of his or her life and who is willing to attest to gender dysphoria, the medical condition in which someone feels their body does not match their biological sex.

State Sen. Julia Kirt (D-Oklahoma City) called it “government interference in the worst way” and asked the state should interfere with other ways people are choosing to raise their children.

SB129 also passed 16-2 along party lines, but it was dramatically altered from its original language. Originally SB129 would have banned gender transition surgeries up to the age of 26 when the author State Sen. David Bullard (R-Durant) said the brain stopped developing and was thinking clearly without the emotional and developmental changes that happen in humans up to that point.

However, Republican lawmakers were concerned they were interfering in an adult’s freedom to live as they please in addition to legal challenges which could make the bill futile or set a bad precedent about how the state views an adult from a child. There were concerns the state was starting to encroach on the definition of an adult starting at age 18.

In the end, SB129 was rewritten to explain public funds would not be used for any gender transitioning or medical needs associated with transgender medicine.

The push to restrict gender reassignment in children actually began last fall during a special legislative session in which OU Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City was told it could either receive funding to continue with gender reassignment surgeries in children. Out of five children who in recent years had some kind of gender-altering surgeries, two of the children with their families publicly expressed regret for having such a big change at such a young age when they could be easily influenced by social media, peer pressure, societal pressure, and other factors such as changes in feeling mid-puberty about who they were sexually. Something Republicans believe proves their point that children are not ready for these kinds of changes until after they finish puberty.

“The science on this is unclear, and the subject of great argument,” Daniels said during debate. She also mentioned she had spoken with two pediatricians in her district who said they were unsettled by the subject that had permanent consequences.