Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has signed a bill that bans gender-affirming medications for transgender youth.
The highly conservative Republican Governor signed the legislation on Friday, which states that doctors could be criminally charged for prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to transgender youth under 19 years old. The bill also bans gender transition surgeries for minors, though doctors made it clear that these procedures are rarely performed on underaged patients. Any surgeon who did perform an operation of this kind could face up to 10 years in prison. After the state House of Representatives passed the bill 66-28, Ivey signed it into law.
“I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl,” Ivey stated.
LGBTQ+ activist and state director for the Human Rights Campaign, Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey, slammed Ivey and the bill, stating that the future of patients and doctors have been jeopardized.
Rep. Neil Rafferty, the only openly gay member of the Alabama Legislature, called the bill “wrong.”
In addition to the anti-gender affirming bill, Ivey also signed into law several measures that will prevent schools from discussing gender and sexual identity with children in early grades. He aims to keep classrooms of young children “free from any kind of sex talk.”
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