PIERRE, South Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — South Dakota is poised to become the next state to protect children from chemical castration and mutilating transgender surgeries after lawmakers passed a total ban on the practices on Thursday.
HB 1080, called the “Help Not Harm” bill, prohibits medical professionals from prescribing or administering puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to minors or performing “any sterilizing surgery” on them, including hysterectomies and castration.
The bill also prohibits any surgery that “artificially constructs tissue having the appearance of genitalia differing from the minor’s sex” as well as procedures to “remove any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.”
HB 1080 requires professional and occupational licensing boards to revoke the licenses of healthcare practitioners found to have violated the bill. And it allows individuals who underwent “gender transitions” as children to bring civil action against the doctors who mutilated them.
South Dakota Senate passed #HB1080, the bill that protects children from risky #transgender interventions in the state. We encourage @govkristinoem to sign this bill because struggling children deserve real #HelpNotHarm! @FH_Alliance
— Family Policy Alliance (@family_policy) February 10, 2023
For minors who began taking hormones before July 1, 2023, the bill requires medical professionals to wean them off of the drugs by no later than December 31, 2023.
It does not restrict procedures for children with a “medically verifiable disorder of sex development” and treatments “for an infection, injury, disease, or disorder” due to a previous “gender transition” procedure.
The South Dakota Senate passed HB 1080 yesterday in a party-line vote of 30-4. The bill passed the state House last week in a similarly overwhelming 60-10 vote.
Republican state Sen. Jack Reed introduced an amendment in the Senate on Thursday that would have allowed minors to receive puberty blockers, but it failed 25-9.
Ex-trans teen testifies in favor of HB 1080
Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old girl who formerly identified as “transgender,” testified in favor of the “Help Not Harm” bill before the South Dakota legislature.
Cole, who underwent a double mastectomy at 15 but came to regret the procedure, said that doctors told her parents that she would likely commit suicide if she didn’t “transition,” The Epoch Times reported.
“I was treated negligently by my health care provider. But the biggest failure they made was encouraging and allowing me to medically transition as a child in the first place,” Cole said.
“HB 1080 will protect other children and families in this state from medical experimentation and defend the greatest right that children have: the right to grow up into healthy adults who are able to live fulfilling lives,” she added.
READ: ‘It almost killed me’: Ex-trans teen slams ‘gender transitioning’ in powerful speech
Gov. Noem expected to sign
The passage of HB 1080 comes despite the opposition of Sanford Health, a Sioux Falls-based health system and the state’s largest employer, which successfully lobbied against a similar bill in 2020. Sanford Health provides so-called “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers for minors.
Despite her ties to Sanford Health, Gov. Kristi Noem endorsed HB 1080 in January and is expected to sign it.
“Governor Noem supports this legislation and will be watching as the legislature works through the process,” Noem’s chief of communications told The Daily Signal last month.
Republican state Rep. Bethany Soye, the lead sponsor of HB 1080, celebrated the bill’s passage and stressed in a statement that children “deserve true meaningful help, not permanent physical damage.”
Soye noted that Sweden and other countries “started these interventions years before us and have only recently stopped after witnessing the significant harm being done.”
“We took swift action in our state to protect children, learning from Sweden’s dangerous mistake, and we are thrilled to have the Governor’s support on this legislation,” Soye said.
Last year, Swedish health authorities formally recommended against the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors with gender dysphoria, citing “uncertain science” and serious health risks. The dangers of the drugs “outweigh the possible benefits,” the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare concluded.
Finland previously warned against hormonal interventions for gender-confused minors due to potential impacts on bone mineralization, fertility, and the central nervous system.
The health department in Florida also released guidance in July advising against “gender transitions” for children and adolescents amid “a lack of conclusive evidence” and “potential for long-term, irreversible effects.”
Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have been linked to serious and life-threatening side effects, including cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Neither type of drug has been approved by the FDA for gender dysphoria or studied in randomized controlled trials or longitudinal studies with gender-confused minors.
“Gender transition” surgeries result in irreversible mutilation and sterilization, and research shows that people who undergo them have exponentially higher suicide rates.
As few as two percent of boys and 10 percent of girls with gender dysphoria continue to suffer from the condition after puberty, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
READ: Explosive report reveals Vanderbilt promoted transgender surgeries to make ‘huge money’
Lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced dozens of bills this year to restrict chemical and surgical mutilation for minors.
Several states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, have already passed laws to ban or limit the practices as the issue has gained prominence.
Utah became the latest state to do so last month, with a law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox that prohibits “gender transition” surgeries and places a moratorium on hormone drugs.
Similar laws have passed at least one legislative chamber this year in Mississippi, Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming.