NC bill would bar puberty blockers, controversial gender surgeries for minors
NC bill would bar puberty blockers, controversial gender surgeries for minors
House Bill 43 tackles rising incidence of children undergoing hormone therapy and surgeries to alter outward appearance
A bill filed in the North Carolina House looks to take on the rising numbers of kids undergoing controversial hormone therapies and extreme surgeries to alter their physical appearance to that of the opposite sex.
These methods used for transitioning young children and teens from their given biological sex to look like that of the opposite sex have been dubbed by activists and media as “gender-affirming care.”
Filed on Feb. 1, House Bill 43 is only two pages long and has already passed its first reading in the House. Primary sponsors of the bill are Reps. George Cleveland (R-Onslow), Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), Bill Ward (R-Pasquotank), and Steve Tyson (R-Craven).
The bill would enact a new article in statutes called the “Youth Protection Act” making it unlawful for any medical professional to engage in certain medical practices on a minor that “facilitate a minor's desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor's sex.”
Specific practices barred by the bill include:
performing surgeries that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy,
hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy,
phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty.
performing a mastectomy
administering or supplying any of the three specified medications that induce transient or permanent infertility; Supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or other androgens to either sex and puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty
removing any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body party or tissue
Under the bill, a minor is defined as anyone under the age of 18.
An exception in the bill is made for decisions made by parents or guardians of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sexual development.
Medical professionals engaging in procedures barred by the bill will be seen as engaging in unprofessional conduct and would be subject to licensure revocation or another appropriate discipline measure assigned by the respective licensing board.
The bill would set a $1,000 civil penalty per incident. The funds collected would go to the state’s Civil and Penalty Forfeiture Fund.
House Bill 43 also prohibits a health care provider receiving State funds to “furnish, provide, or perform” any service that constitutes a procedure or process of a gender transition procedure to a minor.
If passed by both chambers, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is sure to issue a veto. If for some surprising reason the governor doesn’t veto the bill, it would be effective Oct. 1 of this year.
More To The Story
Recent attention has been paid to a doctor performing gender reassignment surgery operating in the Charlotte area of North Carolina.
Dr. Hope Sherie of “Cosmetic Concierge” specializes in the “highest level of Transgender Surgical Care in the Carolinas.”
Her bio and credentials, as listed on the TransHealthCare.org website, are extensive. She cites her past experience as a surgeon in the Air Force, her undergraduate B.S. degree from Randolph-Macon College, a medical degree from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, and residency at the David Grant Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base, California.
Her bio also has a reference to LBGT activism:
“In addition to her work with the Charlotte Transgender Health Care Group, Dr. Sherie supports local LGBT community organizations such as Time Out Youth and Charlotte Pride.”
Sherie had been boasting on Twitter that she performs gender reassignment surgery on kids as young as 14. Her tweets often included graphic pictures.
After attention was called to her account’s activity, Sherie has since deleted a number of those tweets and has apparently locked her Twitter account.
“Gender-affirming care” surgeries have skyrocketed in the U.S. since 2016 according to an Oct. 2022 study published in the respected and peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
JAMA reported that between 2016 and 2019, chest surgeries on minors rose by a whopping 400 percent. The report documented 1130 chest surgeries performed on kids under 18 years old during that time period.
While critics promoting “gender-affirming care” may claim such a measure harms LGBT youth, however, studies are showing this is less about LGBT youth and more about social trends coupled with peer pressure and, in some cases, activist-type parents.
In January, the American College of Pediatricians sounded the alarm, calling on organizations to scrap transgender protocols based on the most recent data questioning transition surgeries and procedures.
Even left-leaning comedian Bill Maher has picked up on the “trend.”
More recently, Maher took aim at Democrats and the Biden administration as being “all-in” on trans indoctrination of kids.
Media has opted for headlines that legitimize life-altering surgeries and treatments resulting in sterilization, like ABC News, which ran a headline this week that such bills “target medical care for trans kids.”
The reality is that the scope of these alleged treatments is becoming an increasingly serious issue with questionable science behind it and real health ramifications ahead for all minors who undertake such measures.
The fact is North Carolina’s legislation is late to the game. The gender transition surgery issue has arisen in 35 other statehouses in the last five years with at least 15 states currently writing or passing legislation similar to House Bill 43.