‘Bathroom bills 2.0’: Missouri youth push back on bills banning transgender sports, medicine

Taking deep, shaking breaths, Samantha DeMichieli told a Missouri House committee about the shot of Lupron she gets every three months.

It hurts, the teenager said, but it’s worth it. She called the male hormone-suppressing treatment a lifeline for transgender youth.

“Without it, I’d be sitting here and I’d probably have things like facial hair, a deeper voice and an Adam’s apple,” DeMichieli said. “I really, every day try to express myself, and I know who I am.”

For the second time in two weeks, transgender youth and their parents flooded committee meetings in the Missouri state legislature hoping to block bills that would ban youth from getting gender reassignment treatments or playing sports on teams that match their gender.

The measures are similar to dozens of bills Republicans are sponsoring across the country. Transgender advocates have decried the moves as a political attack on a vulnerable minority group that, despite the advances of the LGBT rights movement, has yet to gain mainstream acceptance

The sports bill, passed by one House committee last week and awaiting a vote in another, proposes a constitutional amendment requiring students to play sports on teams based on their sex assigned at birth.

The Missouri State High School Activities Association currently allows transgender boys undergoing testosterone treatment to compete on boys’ teams, and transgender girls to compete on girls’ teams after documenting one year of treatments that suppress testosterone.

The bill DeMichieli testified against last week in the House Children and Families Committee would make any transition-related medical treatments illegal for minors. That includes puberty blockers like DeMichieli’s treatments, hormone therapy and surgeries. An identical bill had a hearing the same day in the Senate.

Missouri clinics that treat transgender youth follow standards set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which bars gender reassignment surgery on children to treat gender dysphoria, the feeling of unease when one’s gender identity does not match one’s body.

In general, surgery is not sought for prepubescent children who are thinking about transitioning. Instead, they may receive treatments that delay the onset of puberty while youth determine whether they want to pursue longer-term treatments including hormone therapy.

Proponents say the bills would protect children from undergoing what they describe as experimental treatments when they are too young to make such consequential decisions. Opponents and medical experts say puberty blockers are reversible and save the lives of transgender children, who have higher rates of suicide than other youth.

“They can go to all the counseling and dress and change their name and whatever they want to do, I just don’t want them medically treated with drugs,” said Rep. Suzie Pollock, a Lebanon Republican and the bill’s sponsor. “In what other area do we allow children to make those decisions so young?”

DeMichieli, who said she’s been taking the treatments for four years, said it wasn’t a decision she made rashly.

“This was not me being like, ‘Oh, one day I’m going to wake up and I’m going to choose this, and the next day I’m going to be this,’” she said. “This is the clearest decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

‘Bathroom bills 2.0’

Both proposals had hearings last year in Missouri, and were among the bills that stalled during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, they returned alongside transgender sports bills in more than 20 states and medical bans for transgender minors in at least 15.

In Kansas, a Senate committee could vote on a sports bill this week.

The bills have been promoted nationally by the GOP, with former President Donald Trump addressing the issue at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year.

“It’s not good for women’s sports which worked for so long and so hard to get to where they are,” he said, adding, “If this does not change, women’s sports as we know it will die.”

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller told Politico the issue of women’s sports would help the party “win midterms” next year.

“It’s the new culture war,” said Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat who for years has pushed for the state to add gay and transgender people to its anti-discrimination statutes.

For Avery Jackson, the transgender girl from Kansas City featured four years ago on the cover of National Geographic, opposing the legislation is exhausting, said her mother Debi Jackson, who has become an activist.

The Jacksons live close to the state line and have shuttled between Topeka and Jefferson City in recent years, advocating against a wave of bills that would have blocked transgender people from using bathrooms that matched their gender. Those bills largely died across the country.

“This is essentially bathroom bills 2.0,” Jackson said, later adding, “You shouldn’t have to fight with adults about who you are for so many years.”

Pollock denied that her bill was being driven by a national political agenda.

“I don’t plan to run for any further offices,” she said. “This wasn’t to get any special recognition. It’s just to protect children.”

Rep. Chuck Basye, a Rocheport Republican who is sponsoring the sports bill, told the Emerging Issues Committee last month that many families worry their daughters’ chances for athletic scholarships are threatened by competing with transgender girls, but are afraid to speak out for fear of being called bigoted.

“I think this is an issue of fairness,” he said. “I think it’s very damaging to young girls especially.”

An Associated Press review of two dozen state legislatures with the bills found lawmakers cited few instances nationwide and almost none in each state in which the participation of transgender girls competitively disadvantaged a cisgender girl. In the committee hearing, Basye said there are “proven cases in the country where this has caused some issues.”

His bill is unique in proposing a constitutional amendment, meaning if approved by both chambers it would go to the voters — triggering an election and campaign materials about transgender children that alarms opponents.

“All kinds of people across the state will see ads run and horrific stories written and op-eds from people who don’t know anything about the trans experience,” Jackson said. “No one should have to see their experience debated by their neighbors.”

Stepping in way of parents?

In between a litany of testimony and disputes over the medical knowledge on transgender children, lawmakers debated whether families and doctors, or the state, should decide what treatments are appropriate.

Pollock’s bill would take away the license of doctors who prescribe puberty-blocking medications or hormone treatments for minors. Ordinarily, opponents said, treatment options are discussed with the family by a team of doctors and mental health providers.

It’s generated hundreds of pages of testimony. The bill is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and PROMO, the state’s LGBT advocacy group and medical associations including the American Academy of Pediatrics. It’s backed by the religious conservative group Concerned Women for America, and the American College of Pediatrics, an organization that supports conversation therapy for gay teenagers.

Pollock said the medications are dangerous and that youth who undergo treatment have regrets, claims that her opponents disputed.

“You’re essentially stepping in the way of the parent, the child and their doctor in saying that we, the state, know better,” said Rep. Shamed Dogan, a Ballwin Republican.

“I think this is bad for children and I will fight for that,” Pollock said.

So many showed up to testify that the three-and-a-half hour hearing had to be split into two halves. Several were young transgender children and their parents, who said they pulled the kids out of school for the trip to Jefferson City.

Pollock revised the proposal from last year’s version which would have made it child abuse for parents to seek those treatments for their children. She said she also plans to take out a measure that would refer parents for investigation by the Children’s Division.

“I don’t want to put parents through that,” she said.