Following a long discussion with a physician who warned of mental health concerns, the Senate Health Committee advanced a bill that would ban aspects of gender affirming care for minors.
The original version of House Bill 2007, “Prohibiting certain medical practices,” focused on irreversible gender-affirming surgery. A revised version also includes gender-altering medication.
Supporters pointed generally toward news coverage of gender-affirming procedures elsewhere and said the policy is meant to ensure West Virginia doesn’t face growing acceptance of the treatment.
Critics of the bill have said such surgery doesn’t occur in West Virginia because medical providers already have policy against it. On the issue of medicines such as hormone blockers, critics have said the government is getting in the way of decisions that should be among medical professionals, youths and their families.
Dr. Kacie Kidd, medical director of the Gender and Sexual Development Multidisciplinary Clinic at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital, spoke to senators via streaming technology prior to the vote to advance the bill, which is also assigned to the Judiciary Committee.
Kidd said gender-altering surgery for minors is extremely rare and the clinic doesn’t provide that procedure. “This is not something offered in our state,” she told senators.
Under questioning she later added, “it’s not something that is common at all, even nationwide.” And she added, “most of the time I spend is in conversation with folks about how they talk to grandma and how they style their hair. And so surgical considerations are far from the conversations that we typically have in our clinic.”
She said the center does work with youths, sometimes providing gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty-blocking medications. That treatment comes with extensive conversation about potential risks and benefits.
“Denying medical care and support of transgender youth puts them at risk of myriad harms, including depression, social isolation, self-hatred, self-harm, even suicidal thoughts or attempts,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, said some of his colleagues might want to know if minors going through gender-identity issues are actually being swayed by societal suggestion.
Kidd responded, “The young people that I care for have severe gender dysphoria, and their mental health is often negatively impacted by that severe gender dysphoria. The treatments we provide are evidence-based and medically-necessary to help reduce that gender dysphoria and allow them to go on with their lives.
“So that’s very different from one who is potentially just exploring aspects of themselves. My patients are often involved with many years of conversations about how we can best support them before these medical treatments are considered.”
Senator Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, asked whether hormonal treatment can be reversed.
Kidd said puberty-blocking medications are considered fully-reversible. “It allows them and their family to sort out if things like hormone therapy in the future is important to them. The use of hormone therapy can involve changes like the growth of facial hair, for example, or the deepening of one’s voice.
“Those things can also be changed with other interventions, but if you stopped taking the medicine they would persist. So we consider them a different category and the use of those medicines requires extensive conversations.”
A majority of senators on the Health Committee narrowly defeated a series of proposed amendments to still allow some aspects of hormone therapy. Responding to pushback against an amendment that would have allowed some patients who had already started therapy to continue, Chairman Mike Maroney got frustrated.
“As a committee of mostly medically-uneducated people to pass laws – this is equivalent to passing a law saying you can’t treat someone for schizophrenia,” said Maroney, R-Marshall, a radiologist.
“I’ve chosen to keep quiet on it. It’s the equivalent to saying you can’t give patients drugs for chemotherapy. Those are all peer-review article, proven, literature-based. This is too but it’s just something that we don’t understand or don’t get. That’s fine. I chose to stay quiet. But to take the step and prohibit those already being treated, to deny them continued treatment — some may be irreversible, most of it’s not — that’s not only uneducated, that’s cruel in my opinion.”
