South Dakota lawmakers vote to jail doctors for treating trans teens – The Guardian staff and agency (The Guardian) / Jan 30 2020
The bill, which would bar doctors in the state from providing puberty-blockers to anyone under 16, now heads to the state’s senate
South Dakota lawmakers voted in favor of a law that would see doctors jailed for giving puberty-blocking drugs to transgender children, the latest in a slew of such bills sweeping the United States.
The bill, which cleared the South Dakota house of representatives on Wednesday but still has to clear the state’s senate, would bar doctors in the state from providing anyone under 16 with the drugs, which can temporarily stop the body from producing the hormones that lead to puberty, a reversible process.
Critics of the proposed ban say the drugs play a crucial role in allowing trans children struggling with the onset of puberty to hit pause.
“One of the biggest problems for these kids is … their sense of who they are isn’t matching their body,” Anne Dilenschneider, a South Dakota psychologist, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“They’ve got a body developing in a way that is causing a huge crisis. And they want it to stop,” said Dilenschneider, warning this could make young people suicidal.
Studies have found that young trans people have a much higher suicide rate than their peers.
Continue to article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/30/trans-teens-hormone-blockers-south-dakota-bill
