Missouri House passes permanent ban on gender-affirming care for minors
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- House voted 105-40 to remove 2027 sunset, making ban permanent.
- Republicans cited child-protection and Europe data; Democrats disputed the science.
- Bill heads to Senate amid local backlash and fear among trans residents.
The Missouri House on Thursday passed a bill to permanently ban gender-affirming care for minors despite intense pushback from the state’s transgender community and LGBTQ advocates.
The bill, filed by Rep. Melisa Schmidt, an Eldridge Republican, would remove a 2027 sunset on a 2023 law that banned health care, such as hormone therapy, for transgender minors.
Thursday’s vote marked Missouri’s first major attempt this year to remove the expiration date, a provision added by Democrats in 2023. The initial legislation, which included a permanent ban on surgeries for transgender minors and incarcerated people, was part of a nationwide wave of legislation aimed at the transgender community.
After passing through the House on a vote of 105 to 40, the legislation now heads to the Senate.
Transgender residents in the sprawling Kansas City metro have long straddled two states that have pushed to restrict their rights, stoking fear and prompting some to leave the region.
Celeste Michael, a 24-year-old transgender woman from Kansas City, said she was frustrated when reached by phone on Thursday.
“I’m terrified for what this will mean for both the mental and physical well-being of the kids and adolescents who are no longer able to access life-saving care,” she said.
Last month in neighboring Kansas, lawmakers codified strict definitions of sex and gender into the Kansas Constitution to bar transgender people from sex-specific spaces in government buildings and revoke reissued driver’s licenses and birth certificates that reflect trans Kansans identities.
During debate on the legislation on Monday, Republicans framed the bill as a way to protect children from medical decisions they may regret in the future, and noted changing standards in European countries in treating gender nonconforming youth.
“We must not ignore what other countries have reported, and the changes they are making away from attempting to transition children. Puberty blockers are not simply pushing a pause button, and there are long-term, irreversible effects,” Schmidt said.
Democrats pushed back against the scientific claims Republicans made. Rep. Wick Thomas, a Kansas City Democrat and Missouri’s first transgender lawmaker, accused Republicans of cherry-picking quotes from studies and statements from medical organizations to support their arguments.
“These studies do not say what you are saying; they say, and I’d be happy to talk further about that. But unfortunately, we’re in perfection today, and that due diligence has not been done,” Thomas said on the House floor.
Some House Democrats accused the Republican supermajority of engaging in culture war political theater during an election year.
“You know it’s an election year when two of the first bills heard on this floor are abortion and trans kids,” said Rep. Keri Ingle, a Lee’s Summit Democrat.
Thursday’s vote also marked an about-face for House Speaker Jon Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican. Patterson, the most powerful Republican in the House, voted against the legislation in 2023 but in favor of making the ban permanent on Thursday.
Patterson, in a statement to The Star, framed his vote on Thursday as a way to put the issue to rest.
“This is a settled issue in Missouri,” Patterson said. “Debating these bills over and over only hurts the kids we are all trying to protect. We should put this issue to rest and if a future legislature decides to change it in the future, they can take it up then.”
A review of large insurance databases between 2018 and 2022 showed that medical intervention was rare for adolescents, with fewer than 0.1% of U.S. adolescents receiving gender-affirming medication, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Surgical interventions are even rarer, according to a Harvard Study that reported a rate of 2.1 per 100,000.
For Celeste Michael, the 24-year-old transgender woman, trans youth are simply trying to navigate their lives.
“It’s increasingly frustrating how obsessed it seems Republicans are with this narrative that supporting and caring for trans and non-binary kids and adolescents is somehow predatory or offensive or goes against the natural order,” Michael said.
The Star’s Kacen Bayless contributed reporting.
