Maine’s Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary voted this week to advance legislation that would allow minors who are at least 16 to access gender-affirming hormone therapy without the consent of their parents, according to a report in the Portland Press Herald.
The bill now moves forward for full votes in the state’s House and Senate.
Reports the Press Herald:
All but one Democrat on the Judiciary Committee supported the bill sponsored by Rep. Erin Sheehan of Biddeford. Only one Republican, Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn was present for the vote, and he voted yes. The rest had already left by the time the vote was cast after 7:30 p.m. …
Although the bill, L.D. 535, would allow care for older teens without their parents’ consent, there are certain conditions that would have to be met.
First, they must be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a term for when a person’s biological sex and gender identity do not align. Second, they must be experiencing or are expected to experience harm from not receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy. And third, the minor must receive certain detailed information and counseling from a health care professional prior to providing written consent.
“The issues we are considering here are highly sensitive, even in the best of times,” Sheehan said during a public hearing on the bill this month. “But today, transgender health care is being politicized and stigmatized in the press and on social media. Transgender people, including youth, are being explicitly vilified and branded a threat to their peers by grownups – even by leaders in their communities.”
Sheehan’s legislation was among a handful of Democratic proposals designed to protect gender-affirming care in Maine. Such care is under attack from Republicans across the country, who are enacting and proposing bans on gender-affirming care for minors and taking steps to consider allowing consent for such care for a minor to qualify as child abuse or neglect.
Fifteen states already restrict gender-affirming care for people under 18, and 18 other states, including New Hampshire and New Jersey, are considering bans on gender-affirming care for minors, according to Human Rights Watch.
That comes even as age-appropriate, gender-affirming care has been endorsed by major medical associations across the country, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association.
Read the complete Portland Press Herald story here.
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