North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed a bill Wednesday banning gender-affirming care for most minors with the possibility of a felony for health care professionals who provide it.
House Bill 1254 prohibits health care providers from performing a variety of gender-affirming care and procedures on those under the age of 18. Mike Nowatzki, communications director for the governor, confirmed the bill’s signature in an email Thursday.
Burgum, in a statement to CNN, said the bill “is aimed at protecting children from the life-altering ramifications of gender reassignment surgeries,” although it also bars providers from prescribing minors puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapies for the purpose of gender transition.
Transgender youths’ 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 they want to be known – has become a flashpoint in red states across the country.
Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.
Burgum acknowledged in his statement that “physicians and other health care providers testified these types of surgeries have not been and are not being performed on minors in North Dakota.”
Some Republicans have expressed concern over long-term outcomes and whether children should be able to make such consequential decisions, even with parental consent. But major medical associations say that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for…
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