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House Lawmakers Pass Transgender Procedures For Minors Ban

House lawmakers are sending a bill that criminalizes medical providers who prescribe puberty blockers or perform gender affirming surgeries on minors to the state Senate.

It passed on a 46 to 23 vote in favor.

The bill creates a class one misdemeanor for doctors that perform sterilizing procedures, mastectomies and provide hormone therapy to children.

Republican Representative Fred Deutsch started exploring twitter in April after last year’s session. He says he was overwhelmed with the children he saw on twitter and what he calls “de-transitioners.” He says his research eventually landed him on the social news aggregation site Reddit. He says ended up in a de-transitioner sub-Reddit, and decided to act.

“I started into exploring the internet. I came across this. Within a month or so, I decided I want to look into South Dakota. I want to see if there are doctors here," Deutsch says. "I want to explore what I could learn about children here and I found enough that I decided to write a bill.”

Deutsch took copies of the bill to a Family Heritage Alliance summit in October, where he says he passed out the bill to legislators from other states. The South Dakota House is the first chamber to pass the legislation.

State Democrats contend the surgeries listed in House Bill 1057 aren’t happening here, and the bill interjects the government between medical providers and patients.

Representative Erin Healy says a lot of misinformation is being spread in the state capitol about transgender care.

“This just isn’t happening in our state,” Healy says. “We don’t have to worry about surgeries and hormones and puberty blockers are safe. It’s incredibly unfortunate that we aren’t listening to our providers who are the true professionals.”

Sanford health officials say of the one million patients they saw in 2019, 18 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria—the distress a person feels when their gender identity and sex assigned at birth don’t match.

The ACLU South Dakota says they will challenge the law if signed by Governor Kristi Noem. The Liberty Counsel, an evangelical Christian organization, says they will defend the state pro-bono. The governor says she has concerns with the bill.