Bill to restrict procedures to alter sex of a minor advances in La. legislature

BATON ROUGE – A Louisiana House committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that would bar doctors from providing certain hormone treatments to minors or performing surgeries that would alter their gender.

HB463, introduced by Republican State Rep. Gabe Firment, is one of dozens of such measures being considered by state legislatures. Firment named the bill “The Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act.”

It passed through the Health and Welfare committee on a vote of 14-3.

HB463 expresses a “grave concern… that the medical community is allowing individuals who experience distress identifying with their biological sex to be subjects of irreversible and drastic non-genital gender reassignment surgery and irreversible, permanently sterilizing genital gender reassignment surgery, despite the lack of studies showing that the benefits of such extreme interventions outweigh the risks.”

The bill has drawn the ire of some LGBTQ groups and civil rights advocates. The ACLU of Louisiana said, in advance of the vote, “trans health care is under attack.”

Firment, whose district includes Grant, LaSalle, Natchitoches, Red River and Winn parishes, has rejected suggestions that the bill fosters hate. Supporters of the bill who testified on Tuesday included several people who “de-transitioned” — and who blamed doctors and others for putting them on a gender-changing course.

A bill similar to HB463 failed in the 2022 session.