(LifeSiteNews) — West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey has signed into law a measure that strengthens existing protections for children to ensure they are not subjected to life-altering, experimental “gender transition” surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones.
The new law is clear: “If a physician provides either gender reassignment surgery or gender altering medication to a person who is under 18 years of age, the appropriate licensing board shall find the physician in violation of this section and shall immediately revoke the license of the physician.”
Known as SB 299, the law also prohibits telehealth practitioners from prescribing or dispensing gender altering medication.
“Children who experience discomfort with their sex need the loving embrace of family, not risky drugs and life-altering procedures that send them down a one-way path of lifetime medicalization,” said Alliance Defending Freedom’s Senior Counsel Matt Sharp, director of the ADF Center for Public Policy.
“The new law closes a loophole that allowed profit-driven gender clinics to push vulnerable children towards the puberty blockers and hormones that far too often lead to irreversible surgeries,” said Sharp in a statement. “And it creates a legal remedy so that these gender clinics can be held accountable for the harm inflicted on kids.”
Sharp commended Majority Leader Pat McGeehan and Sen. Chris Rose for their leadership on advancing the bill, and Gov. Morrisey for signing it into law.
“West Virginia has taken a critical step to fully protecting kids from a radical agenda that has devastated countless lives around the world,” declared Sharp.