A bill (HB 68) that would classify life-saving, gender-affirming care for transgender youth as child abuse went before the New Hampshire House of Representatives’ Children & Family Law committee late last week.
Opposing this legislation — along with doctors, parents and young people who testified against it at a hearing earlier this month — is the Human Right Commission (HRC), which is asking people to sign a petition. The petition states in part that “Medical decisions should be made between the patient, parents, and physician — not the government or politicians. This bill would punish doctors and parents for providing life-saving medical care and it flies in the face of respecting the rights, needs, and well-being of transgender youth.”
Though HRC advised people to sign the petition last week before it went to committee, you can still add your name to the petition here.
Here’s the scoop on the proposed legislation from the Concord Monitor:
In a bill presented to the House Children and Family Law Committee, Rep. Dave Testerman, a Republican, has proposed changing the definition of abuse of a child to include sex reassignment surgery on minors.
The bill, House Bill 68, would consider any child “subjected to drug treatments or surgery in an attempt to alter the sex of the child assigned at birth” to be an “abused child” in the eyes of the law.
“I don’t care how parents want to dress their kids, how they want to address their kids,” Testerman said. “Things like that – not my business to get into. As the bill says, I’m just talking about drugs and operations for surgery.”
The legislation is sparsely worded, but Testerman said that it would subject pediatricians who carry out the procedures to child abuse laws. And it would make parents who requested it for their children liable themselves, and could open the family up to an investigation by the Division for Children, Youth and Families. …
[However] Christine Arsnow, a pediatrician at Concord Hospital and the vice president of the New Hampshire Pediatric Society, said that the procedures are well established in the medical community, and that the sex reassignment therapy starts gradually and with full consent of the teenager.
The process follows guidelines and starts with evaluations of children with gender dysphoria, starting with “socially transitioning” – identifying them by their preferred names and pronouns and allowing them to select their own clothing and hair styles. Medical treatment is used only after puberty, and only for some teens, Arsnow said.
“It can be hard to understand what it is like to have a transgender child, especially if you’ve never met someone who is transgender,” Arsnow said. “Parents of transgender children, like most parents, simply want to do what is best for their child. In addition to harming transgender youth, this bill would directly interfere in the physician-patient-family relationship and harm pediatricians and other medical professionals.”
About 70 people had signed up to speak at the bill’s hearing earlier this month, reported the Monitor, though none may have summed it up as neatly as teenager Anya Tang.
“I oppose HB 68,” said Tang, “because I believe that denying me the health care I need to feel safe and affirmed is abuse, in and of itself.”
Read the complete Concord Monitor article here.
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