South Dakota House Bans Gender Affirming Care for Minors

House Bill 1080, a legislation which will ban gender-affirming care for minors in South Dakota, passed through the House of Representatives early this month and is on its way to the Senate. This legislation will ban hormone treatment and puberty blockers in addition to genital surgery. Healthcare professionals who provide this type of care will be forced to adhere to the law or else lose their licenses and face other harsh legal repercussions.

The bill passed in the House with a 60-10 vote. One of the first publicly gay men in the legislature, Democratic Rep. Kameron Nelson, is among the six Democrats who voted against the bill.

Nelson responded with righteous outrage to Republican Rep. Bethany Soye, one of the sponsors of the bill who adamantly insisted the bill’s intent to help children. “These children and youth are working with their counselors, parents, and friends to find out who they are,” he says, according to the ArgusLeader. “How dare you sit and stand on this floor today and tell these children that they don’t know who they are and that you know better than them?”

Republican Rep. Jessica Olson, one of those who opposed the bill, allowed that parents can decide if their children should undergo these procedures. She also wondered about the necessity of the bill. Republican Rep. Fred Deutsch, who voted in favor of the passing of the bill, estimated the number of minors seeking or receiving such care is 20 per year.

Nelson was outraged when Republican Rep. Brandei Schaefbauer quoted Martin Luther King Jr. during the meeting, calling it “reprehensible” to appropriate the words of King, who fought for justice and quality, to push a discriminatory agenda. Shaefbauer says in her audacious address to the South Dakota House, “It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated.” She adds, “It may be true that the law cannot train the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.”

Nelson closed his own remarks, saying, “I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m not leaving Pierre.”

This bill is one of over 21 legislations seeking to ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors in the U.S. introduced this year. The Human Rights Campaign denounces the actions of South Dakota’s House in a press release and calls on the House to “reject this discriminatory legislation and to start focusing on ways to actually improve the wellbeing and public health of children in the state.”