Republican legislators voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to enact a bill that places new restrictions on transgender youth, including banning access to transition care.
In the midst of the latest controversy over transgender youth, the Republican-dominated Kentucky legislature voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override the governor’s veto of a bill that will create a host of new regulations and restrictions, including banning access to what doctors call gender-affirming health care.
The mass shooting that occurred at The Covenant School, a private Presbyterian parochial school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27, has unleashed a storm of controversy surrounding transgender youth. The shooter, Audrey Hale, identified as transgender. Republicans, who were already pushing for legislation to ban treatment for children, have exploited Hale’s identity to intensify their anti-gay and anti-transgender campaign.
The bill, described by L.G.B.T.Q. rights groups as among the most extreme in the nation, was vetoed on Friday by Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, but it was overridden in both the State House and Senate, where Republicans hold supermajorities.
The bill specifically bans surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children under 18, and also rejects any requirements by school districts to refer to transgender children by their preferred pronouns. In addition to the new rules governing transgender youth, the bill also puts new limits on what can be discussed in schools, requiring schools to give notice to parents about any program on the subject of sexuality and stopping lessons at any grade level about gender identity or sexual orientation.
As emotions surged, some people protesting the bill from the House gallery were removed and arrested after their chants drowned out the voices of lawmakers. The protesters, their hands bound, chanted “there’s more of us not here” as they waited to be taken away from the Capitol. Kentucky State Police didn’t immediately say how many were arrested or on what charges.
This is a developing story that will be updated as new information emerges.
