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(LifeSiteNews) – In response to recent revelations from Matt Walsh at The Daily Wire, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has called for an investigation into mutilating surgeries on minors at Vanderbilt Hospital as part of its transgender clinic.

But what Vanderbilt is doing may not even violate Tennessee law. Here’s why.

On May 18, 2021, Lee signed into law a one-page bill (SB126) which addressed the issue of so-called gender-change procedures on minors, but merely prohibits “hormone treatment for gender dysphoric or gender incongruent prepubertal minors.” SB126 protects virtually no one over the age of 13, because most children begin puberty by then. Moreover, by explicitly prohibiting cross-sex hormones for prepubertal minors, but not specifying any other prohibitions, this law may tacitly condone sex-change procedures for adolescents.

Regarding SB126, the Tennessee Equality Project (a pro-LGBT organization) observed: “It’s not a ban on gender-affirming care [sic] for trans youth who have entered puberty. It bans that health care before puberty, which health care providers are not doing.”

Speaking for the conservative outlet Tennessee Stands, Gary Humble explained the problem with the 2021 law: “So, we’re not saying that you can’t do mastectomies on a 14-year old; we’re not saying you can’t do hysterectomies on a 16-year old. See? We’re just saying you can’t give hormone treatments to an 8-year old.”

In 2022, the Tennessee legislature had an opportunity to outlaw all gender-mutilation procedures on minors, but the bills never made it out of committee.

This year, Senator Janice Bowling and Representative John Ragan introduced the Youth Health Protection Act (SB2696/HB2835) in their respective chambers to impose civil penalties on those who commit gender-mutilation procedures on minors in Tennessee.

The Youth Health Protection Act would have outlawed all common medical procedures intended to “facilitate the minor’s desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and any surgery that removed “an otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.”

The Youth Health Protection Act, which has been endorsed by the American Academy of Medical Ethics, provides that, “A minor injured by a practice prohibited under this part may bring an action during their minority through a parent, or guardian, and may bring an action in their own name upon reaching majority at any time from that date until twenty (20) years from the date the minor attained the age of majority.”

Had it passed, the legislation also would have guarded parents’ rights to keep their own children safe from such procedures, and it would have protected counselors who provide faith-based counseling.

On March 9, 2022, Senator Bowling reluctantly allowed the chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee, Senator Rusty Crowe, to assign the bill to the General Subcommittee, because there were “still some questions that need to be answered.” This move effectively killed the bill in the senate.

Tennessee Senator Richard Briggs, the senate’s only physician, told LifeSiteNews that although he supports outlawing gender-change procedures for minors, he was unaware of the disposition of SB2696, because he was not on the Health and Welfare Committee.

Representative John Ragan, whose district includes Oak Ridge, carried the bill on the house side. Upon learning that the senate bill had been retired, Ragan took the bill off notice on March 22. Ragan told LifeSiteNews, “I had the votes to pass it in committee and in the house, but I didn’t want to put my colleagues in a position of having to vote on a dead bill.”

Lamenting the failure to pass SB2696 in 2022, Gary Humble of Tennessee Stands said, “Had they passed Senator Bowling’s bill, game over. You can’t do any of it. But they didn’t do that. Now you need to ask yourself, Why?”

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