Georgia’s Senate handed two payments to ban most gender-transitioning therapy for minors and inmates in state prisons, with some Democrats becoming a member of Republicans in supporting the measures.
Lawmakers voted 34-19 on Monday for a invoice to ban most gender-transitioning remedies, together with puberty blockers, for anybody underneath the age of 18, even for folks already on therapy. In 2023, the state banned most gender-transitioning surgical procedures and hormone substitute therapies for transgender kids except they have been already receiving therapy.
“You’re asking [minors] to make modifications that may have modifications to the remainder of their lives,” GOP Sen. Ben Watson, the invoice’s sponsor, mentioned Monday. “It isn’t a good resolution to them. It isn’t a good resolution to the mother and father.”
A second invoice — sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson — that might ban most gender-transitioning therapy for inmates in state prisons handed 37-15.
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Sen. Ben Watson speaks within the Senate Chambers on the Georgia State Capitol, Monday, March, 3, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP)
Opponents of the measures accused Republicans of enjoying politics by focusing on transgender folks and argued that lawmakers ought to give attention to extra urgent points. They mentioned each payments infringe on the rights of transgender folks and their households to make selections about gender-transitioning therapy.
“This physique has promulgated invoice after invoice attacking trans folks with the last word objective of constructing trans people disappear. We’ve been right here earlier than,” Senate Minority Whip Kim Jackson, a Democrat who’s brazenly lesbian, mentioned Monday.
Not less than 26 states have enacted legal guidelines proscribing gender-transitioning therapy for minors, though most have been slapped with lawsuits.
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Not less than 26 states have enacted legal guidelines proscribing gender-transitioning therapy for minors. (Adobe Inventory)
Jackson and different Democrats proposed an modification to Watson’s invoice that might have allowed minors already receiving gender-transitioning therapy to proceed to keep away from the medical and emotional dangers of stopping in the midst of therapy, however the modification failed.
Democrat Sens. Elena Dad or mum and Sonya Halpern reaffirmed their dedication to defending the rights of transgender folks however bucked occasion traces to vote for Robertson’s invoice, saying they don’t imagine taxpayers must be burdened with the price of gender-transitioning therapy for inmates. Mother and father proposed an modification to make an exception for inmates already present process hormone substitute remedy, however that modification additionally failed.
“I cannot let my occasion be dragged into an argument that makes us look out of contact with the very folks we declare to signify,” Halpern mentioned.
4 Democrats supported the invoice banning gender-transitioning therapy for inmates. (iStock)
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Democrat Sen. Sally Harrell, who has two transgender kids, mentioned she wished “to remind those that we’re speaking about very actual folks — mother and father, kids, households.”
Sen. Freddie Powell Sims was the lone Democrat who voted for each payments, whereas 4 Democrats supported the invoice banning gender-transitioning therapy for inmates.
Final month, the Senate handed payments to ban organic boys from enjoying in women’ sports activities and stripped public funding for gender-transitioning therapy for adults.Â
The 4 payments will now head to the Home.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
