Transgender youth reemerge as statehouse focal point in Utah

Utah is among a group of more than 10 states that is considering limiting transgender kids from receiving certain health care, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery

Utah lawmakers wasted no time this week before returning to an issue that has become a popular topic in GOP-led statehouses: Trying to limit medical options doctors are allowed to provide transgender youth.

On the second day of the legislative session, a committee begun considering a policy that would stop minors from receiving gender-affirming health care — including surgery or puberty blockers — and another that would govern requirements for schools to alert parents when kids want to change which pronouns they go by.

The proposals reflect how lawmakers in red states are continuing to make matters related to gender, sexuality and youth central to their legislative agenda. As LGBTQ Americans have become increasing visible throughout popular culture, social conservatives have rallied around emerging issues such as the bathrooms that transgender kids are permitted to use, sports teams they are allowed to play on and the health care their doctors can prescribe.

This year, 11 states have introduced proposals that would enact various restrictions on doctors from prescribing puberty blockers, hormones or surgery to transgender kids and teens. Republicans in South Dakota on Tuesday introduced a transgender health care proposal.

State Sen. Mike Kennedy, a Republican family doctor sponsoring the Utah proposal, said it didn't make sense that health care policy related to gender and youth — which is at times reversible and other times irreversible — would be subject to no government oversight.

He acknowledged the topic was emotional for the families of transgender youth, yet said it was government's responsibility to address issues of children's consent and development. He said research on gender dysphoria continues to evolve throughout the world, noting how medical fields in countries such as Finland and Sweden have tightened regulations governing transgender youth health care.

“Caring for our children does not mean riding the latest radical wave," he said. "We must ask questions: Does the child understand the long-term ramifications of their decision?”

In Utah, where a majority of residents and politicians are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lawmakers have for years focused heavily on social issues, including pornography and alcohol. Last year, the Republican-supermajority Legislature enacted a ban on transgender kids in girls sports. It was subsequently challenged in court and put on pause. While the case is under review, a commission of experts will make eligibility decisions for transgender youth.

Greg Walker, a Utah parent whose daughter has identified as transgender “since she could talk,” said it was disheartening to see the health care decisions his family and their doctors have made politicized.

At each juncture – before she went on puberty blockers or estrogen, for example — the Walkers and their doctors thoroughly deliberated and relied on experts like the American Academy of Pediatrics to understand “the risks of doing it and not doing it.”

Walker said he was particularly concerned about the disproportionately high suicide rates for transgender youth and of the potential harm that could result in the absence of treatment.

“As a parent. my first priority is to take care of my child and make sure my child’s safe,” Walker said.