On Thursday, April 7, 2022, the legislature of Alabama, in which the Republican party has a majority, approved a bill that would make it a crime for doctors to prescribe hormone blockers or hormone replacement therapy to transgender children. The sentence for what is outrageously being defined as a class C felony would be up to 10 years in prison.
The bill passed 66 to 28, with only one Democrat supporting and three Republicans opposing. Governor Kay Ivey has since signed the bill into law. This irresponsible and uninformed piece of legislation follows in the footsteps of a similar Arkansas bill that passed last year but was fortunately temporarily blocked by a federal court while a legal challenge proceeds.
The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the Transgender Law Center are similarly planning to sue the state of Alabama over the constitutionality of this law.
Testimony was presented to lawmakers about how the process of providing puberty blockers to transgender children is already complex and arduous – and requires consensus between parents and medical professionals. Still, the bill’s Republican sponsors insist that their aim is to protect children from suffering long-term effects of what they characterize as misunderstood decisions and childhood whims.
The bill would also prohibit teachers and counselors from encouraging transgender students to keep their identities secret from their parents and mandate that they inform parents if a child discloses information about their gender identity. This could potentially put children in danger of being abused, kicked out of their homes, or suffering mental health crises if the parents react negatively to this information.
There is extensive evidence to suggest that LGBTQIA+ youth already experience mental illness and attempt suicide at a higher rate than their peers. And for the over 60% who do not find acceptance at home, safely expressing themselves to trusted adults at their schools can be a lifeline.
Many Democratic legislators in the Alabama house have expressed outrage at the contents of the bill for its blatant transphobia and invasive attacks on the private medical choices of parents. In criminalizing an important treatment for transgender and non-binary individuals, the bill implicitly condemns the medical choices of supportive parents.
While this bill is just part of a wave of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation that has been pouring out of Republican controlled statehouses in the US, it poses a serious threat to human rights in Alabama and further marginalizes a vulnerable group of people. Allowing a state to punish medical professionals for providing the appropriate treatment to transgender minors sets a dangerous precedent and further erodes transgender individuals’ already precarious protections in the US.