Tennessee’s GOP leadership proposes ban on gender-affirming care as first bill for 2023 – By Frank Gluck (Nashville Tennessean) / Nov 9, 2022
Tennessee lawmakers on Wednesday proposed a ban on gender-affirming care in the form of a bill that would allow children to later sue their parents for providing them such treatment and subject doctors to punishment up to a generation after knowingly violating the law.
If ultimately approved in the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature, it would be among the nation’s strictest bans.
House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 calls for bans on medical procedures that alter minors’ hormonal balance and procedures that remove organs when, “performed for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, orlive as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex or treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”
The bills allow the courts to impose $25,000 fines for each violation and allow the Attorney General to bring an action against a health care provider for violations up to 20 years after they happen. The Attorney General would also be required to establish a process for reporting such violations.
