A Senate panel on Monday voted to further restrict the treatments minors can receive to aid in gender transition.
Last year, the General Assembly approved legislation that banned minors from receiving any potential permanent changes from hormone treatment therapy and surgery, but it allowed those under 18 to receive puberty blocking medication — which Republican members said at the time was not a permanent treatment.
A year later, Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Ben Watson, a Savannah Republican and geriatric doctor, said minors who take puberty blockers frequently go on to have some type of surgery.
“If you allow puberty to progress, 50% of the time (minors) decide not to pursue sex-change surgery,” he said.
Unlike last year, the new bill does not include a “grandfather clause” to allow minors already receiving puberty blockers to continue taking them. It also removes the exemption in last year’s law that allowed minors on hormone replacement therapies to continue receiving the medication as long as they began treatment before the law took effect July 1.
That means if the bill is signed, minors would no longer be allowed to receive puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, regardless of whether they already were on the medications.
Georgia Equality, a gay rights advocacy organization, called the last-minute addition “extremely dangerous.”
“We all want what’s best for our kids,” the group said in a statement. “That’s why it’s so important for parents to make decisions about the health care that is right for their families and allows their kids to grow up healthy and safe. This amendment puts politicians between parents and providers, and could ban access to essential medical care for transgender young people.”
Watson worked with last year’s bill sponsor to ensure puberty blockers would still be allowed under Georgia law — which he called a “well-balanced and well-thought-out” compromise at the time.
But this year, Watson tacked his puberty blocker measure onto House Bill 1170, which would make medications that reverse opioid overdoses more publicly available.
Only people who supported the measure testified on the amendment, including a doctor and past president of an organization that has been deemed an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center and a California woman who travels the country talking about how she regretted transitioning when she was younger.
“Puberty is the only process through which a child can grow into an adult,” said Chloe Cole, the California woman. “No adult has any right to decide whether a child should have their hormones drained from their body when they should be developing. This practice is abusive.”
Democrats on the panel said they found it unfair to pass the amendment without giving opponents a chance to speak.
“Last year, the word that kept being used was ‘pause,’ like ‘Let’s take a pause,’ ” said state Sen. Kim Jackson, the Senate’s only openly LGBTQ member. “If we were to remove the ability to take puberty blockers, what happened to the pause?”
State Sen. David Lucas, a Macon Democrat, said he didn’t understand why Watson wanted to get in between children and their families in making decisions.
“I’m not saying I’m an advocate,” he said. “If the parents are with them every day and dealing with them and seeing what’s going on, shouldn’t they make that decision, rather than us make the decision for them as to what they can do?”
Watson, who has been in the Senate since 2015, is facing far right-wing Savannah activist Beth “Big Fire” Majeroni in a primary.
Watson amended the legislation on the same day the Rev. Andi Woodworth, a transgender pastor, delivered the morning devotional prayer to members of the House, which is believed to be a first in chamber history.
To become law, the bill would have to be approved by the Senate, agreed to by the House and signed by the governor.
