Mississippi Bans Doctors from Helping Trans Youth
debunked theory that claims young people — especially those assigned female at birth, and those who claim to have so-called “autism” or similar neurological or developmental disorders — will identify as transgender due to “social contagion” or peer pressure.
The newly enacted law makes Mississippi the sixth state to pass either a complete or partial ban on gender-affirming care, although complete bans in other states, such as Alabama and Arkansas, have been halted as lawsuits challenging those laws work their way through the courts.Other states, such as Utah and Arizona, have enacted partial bans, blocking all surgical treatments on minors.
Utah’s law also imposes a permanent moratorium on puberty blockers for any youth who has not already been receiving hormonal interventions for at least six months.The passage of the Mississippi law continues the trend of Republican-dominated legislatures and Republican governors taking aggressive action to prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans-identifying minors.A similar law signed by South Dakota Gov.
Kristi Noem is slated to go into effect on July 1, while Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has promised to sign a nearly identical bill recently approved by the state legislature into law in the coming days and weeks.Other states, including Oklahoma and Texas, have taken steps to restrict access to gender-affirming treatments for minors, but currently have no statewide laws explicitly prohibiting doctors from prescribing such treatments.Some critics allege that provisions — such as those in Mississippi’s law — allowing former patients decades-long windows during which they may file lawsuits if they experience “regret” are intended to cow doctors into refusing to provide.
