The Kentucky legislature enacted new restrictions Wednesday on the rights of transgender youth, overriding the governor’s veto of a bill that places bans on gender-affirming care for minors, on discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in school, and on transgender students using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear had vetoed Senate Bill 150 on Friday, saying in a statement at the time that it would allow “too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children.”
But the Republican supermajority in the state’s legislature overrode that veto largely along party lines, with a 76-23 vote in the state House and a 29-8 vote in the state Senate, according to Kentucky’s legislative research commission.
While the state Senate majority caucus celebrated SB 150 in a tweet as “one of the nation’s most significant and comprehensive omnibus bills to enhance protections for Kentucky’s children,” Kentucky’s Democratic Party deemed the measure the “most extreme anti-LGBTQ bill in America.”
A spokesperson for Beshear directed CNN to the governor’s previous statements on the bill when asked for comment on the override. The governor faced similar circumstances last year when Republicans overrode his veto of an anti-trans sports ban.
The new law comes as legislatures across the country have introduced similar measures, which Republicans say are aimed at protecting minors. Transgender minors’ access to gender-affirming care – medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from the gender they were designated at birth to the gender by which one wants to be known – has been a particular flashpoint, with Georgia, Iowa and Tennessee enacting their own…
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