BOISE, Idaho (LifeSiteNews) — The governor of Idaho has signed into law a bill law prohibits so-called “gender transitions” for minors in his state.
On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed the Vulnerable Child Protection Act in a major victory for children and families, effectively banning the use of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and mutilating surgeries in the name of “gender affirmation.”
“These experimental, irreversible, and medically unnecessary pharmaceutical and surgical interventions violate the Hippocratic oath, taken by physicians for millennia, to ‘do no harm’,” the bill states. “Therefore, the state of Idaho has a compelling government interest in protecting the health and safety of its minor children from such medical interventions for the purpose of attempting to affirm or change a child’s gender expression.”
The bill language also includes statements regarding the “objectively defined category” of biological sex and points out that “gender dysphoria among children rarely persists into adulthood,” instead resolving after puberty. Long-term health problems such as infertility, osteoporosis, obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease are mentioned as additional compelling evidence to ban child mutilation.
HB 71 prohibits any medical professional from “performing surgeries that sterilize or mutilate, or artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the child’s biological sex” and “administering or supplying” children with “puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty,” “supraphysiological doses of testosterone to a female,” and “supraphysiological doses of estrogen to a male.”
Exceptions to the ban include surgeries which are “necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed,” such as emergency removal of organs after childbirth or due to “a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.” In such cases, procedures must be performed by licensed medical professionals and with the consent of parents and guardians.
“Any person convicted of a violation of this section shall be guilty of a felony and shall be imprisoned in the state prison for a term of not more than ten years,” the bill states. The law is set to go into “full force and effect” on January 1, 2024.
The legislative victory comes less than two weeks after Gov. Little signed a bill requiring students to use bathrooms and other private facilities at school in accordance with their biological sex.
READ: Idaho governor signs law requiring students to use bathrooms based on biological sex
The Idaho Family Policy Center, a faith-based organization dedicated to promoting pro-family policies in the state, partnered with representatives Bruce Skaug and Lori Den Hartog to sponsor the bill when it was introduced for the third time this year.
“We can’t overstate the importance of this victory—and we definitely owe it in part to your biblical citizenship and your support of this ministry,” Blaine Conzatti, president of the organization, wrote in an April 4 blog post. “This has been a long battle over the last few years, but looking back, we can now see God’s good providence through it all.”
Conzatti explained that when the bill was first introduced, it “never even received a committee vote.” The second year, the state Senate never held a committee hearing on the legislation, which managed to make it “off the House floor.”
When the bill passed the House and Senate this year, supporters of the Idaho Family Policy Center joined the organization to “send emails and make phone calls asking Gov. Little to sign the bill.”
“In the end, it was all worth it,” Conzatti continued, highlighting that at the beginning of 2024, “no gender dysphoric child in the state of Idaho will ever again be subjected to medically unnecessary interventions that result in irreparable infertility, chronic health problems, and mutilated reproductive organs.”
Amid the rising pressure to allow children to permanently damage their healthy bodies, lawmakers across the country are rolling out legislation to protect minors from taking such drastic measures and to hold medical professionals accountable for participating in such abuse.
In February, the Tennessee Senate voted to ban child mutilation in the form of drugs and surgery, committed in the name of “gender transitions.” Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law a few weeks later, alongside another bill to keep minors from attending sexually explicit drag shows.
Weeks later, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law enabling victims of chemical and surgical mutilation to more easily take legal action against perpetrators for malpractice.
Previously, Oklahoma passed legislation prohibiting the use of state funding for surgical interventions for gender-confused minors. A total ban on these procedures is currently being debating in the legislature.
South Dakota, Mississippi, Utah, West Virginia, and Iowa are all among the states that have enacted partial or total laws in 2023 to ban mutilating drugs and surgeries for gender-confused minors.
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