Last week, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would ban so-called gender affirming surgeries as well as pharmaceutical treatments such as hormone replacement therapy, for children under 18. Should Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, sign the bill into law, parents of children receiving such therapies will have until March 31, 2024 to end such treatments in the Volunteer State.
Lee has already indicated that he is supportive of the bill.
“Like any piece of legislation, I will look at the details of it when it gets closer to my desk,” Lee said. “But I’m grateful to the leadership in both houses who have worked to protect kids along those lines.”
Should Lee sign the bill, Tennessee will become the fifth state to ban both surgical and pharmaceutical intervention for the treatment of gender dysphoria in children. Other states, including Utah and South Dakota, have passed similar laws.
The bill’s language will make it illegal in Tennessee to use any surgical or pharmaceutical intervention “for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
“Children do not need these medical procedures to be able to flourish as adults,” said Tennessee House Majority Leader William Lamberth. “They need mental health treatment. They need love and support, and many of them need to be able to grow up to become the individuals that they were intended to be.”
Much of the credit for the passing of the bill can be given to the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, a Tennessee resident who recently produced What is a Woman?, a documentary that explored the transgender movement and its effects on children. In September of last year, Walsh exposed the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s big-money ambitions behind these “gender affirming” procedures in a Tennessee hospital.
“Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it’s a ‘big money maker,’ especially because the surgeries require a lot of ‘follow ups,'” Walsh stated in a tweet.
“Vanderbilt was apparently concerned that not all of its staff would be on board. Dr. Ellen Clayton warned that ‘conscientious objections’ are ‘problematic.’ Anyone who decides not to be involved in transition surgeries due to ‘religious beliefs’ will face ‘consequences,'” Walsh added.
Lee signaled his endorsement of such a bill shortly after Walsh’s exposé.
“We should not allow permanent, life-altering decisions that hurt children,” the governor said at the time. “With the partnership of the General Assembly, this practice should end in Tennessee.”
Like clockwork, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) promised a lawsuit should the bill become law.
“All Tennesseans should have access to the healthcare they need to survive and thrive,” said ACLU attorney Lucas Cameron-Vaughn. “Gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth is safe, necessary, effective and often life-saving. Legislators are risking trans young people’s health, wellbeing and safety with this dangerous legislation. We urge Governor Lee to veto this overreaching, discriminatory bill, or we will see him in court.”
Walsh, who has earned the scorn of the entire LGBT community for his documentary and his exposing of Vanderbilt’s transgender money-grab, was both optimistic and realistic about the bill and about protecting children from these risky procedures going forward.
“The Tennessee legislature has now passed the bill banning child mutilation in the state. We’re fighting. We’re winning. And we aren’t even close to done,” Walsh said in an optimistic tone. “I’m all about being realistic. Nobody would accuse me of optimism. But the fact is that in the fight against gender ideology we have put one win on the board after another. We were way behind when we started so there’s a lot of ground to cover, but momentum is on our side.”
The states, along with personalities such as Walsh, are clearly leading the charge for sanity when it comes to protecting children from these risky and dangerous — and often irreversible — procedures. Standing in the way of that sanity are the radical LGBT activists, headline-grabbing law interests such as the ACLU, and, unfortunately, the federal government.
