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In 2023, the West Virginia Legislature banned gender-affirming care for minors with narrow exceptions for specific hormone therapies and puberty blockers.
If Gov. Patrick Morrisey signs Senate Bill 299, which the legislature passed today, then that gap will be closed, and gender-affirming care for all minors will be outlawed.
Currently, if a minor is diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria and it is the opinion of two doctors that gender-affirming care is medically necessary, then a minor could be a candidate to receive such care. The minors parents would also have to consent to the treatment.
In the state, currently, the only form of gender-affirming care available to minors is hormone therapy and puberty blocking medications.
Senate Bill 299 would close those exemptions. Health care providers who provide hormone blockers or hormone therapy for the purpose of gender transitioning could be disciplined by their governing medical board, and have their license to practice suspended or revoked.
On Saturday, the last day of the legislative session the House of Delegates considered the bill. Two amendments were proposed.
The first amendment, proposed by the House Committee on Health, would have removed disciplinary actions from the state board, but included a provision that a health care provider could not be required by their employer to provide gender affirming care.
The amendment failed.
An amendment proposed by Del. Bill Flanigan, R-Ohio, would have extended the amount of time minors who are currently receiving gender affirming care have to taper off the medications. The amendment would have given minors just over a year instead of the current six months.
“We just want to extend the six-month start to a one-year start, suicide rates will at least triple when you cut somebody off cold turkey from these medications, and I just give them one year to titrate down,” Flanigan said.
Many Democrats and some Republicans spoke in favor of the amendment.
Del. Michael Amos, R-Wayne, and one of few doctors in the room said the bill needed to have the amendment to reduce harm.
“I would argue under the current posture of our law that it would be harmful,” Amos said.
Republicans pushed back over concerns that if the amendment passed, minors would be on the medications longer, and therefore they said more exposed to possible side effects. There were other concerns that if the House amended the bill, it decreased the chance of the bill crossing the finish line.
Of the 166 floor hours in a regular session, “we are down to the last 12,” said Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh.
“You’re more worried about if the bill may die than if they do from suicide,” said Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio.
The amendment failed.
This bill was considered in four committees, and in both chambers. At each step along the way, many medical professionals, LGBTQ advocates, and transgender West Virginians came to speak against the bill.
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Ash Lazarus grew up in the Mountain State, and is trans. He said it’s difficult to see this type of legislation.
“They are very damaging and very toxic for our communities,” Lazarus said.
Kate Waldeck is medical director of the pediatric critical care unit at Hoops Family Children’s Hospital. She also came to speak against the bill when it was in committee.
“I have taken care of children that have died from hanging, from being hanged by themselves, from toxin ingestion, from medication overdose, from gunshot wounds. I’ve also taken care of, fortunately, more children who have done those things and survived,” Waldeck said.
She said she noticed early on that a disproportionate number of children she was treating were trans or non-binary.
“I do not want to see them back in my unit with asphyxiation marks. I don’t want to see them overdosing. It is not about an agenda other than patient care,” Waldeck said.
The Senate Health Committee heard testimony from medical professionals, and from advocates of the bill who video-called in from out of state.
Simon Maya Price from Boston, Massachusetts, appeared before the Senate Health Committee virtually. He says for a brief time during his adolescence, he believed he was female. Now a freelance speaker, he advocates for bills like Senate Bill 299.
“The more desisters and de-transitioners I talk to, the more I realize just how close I was to being permanently disfigured, disabled and becoming a lifelong medical patient,” Price said.
Price said his doctors recommended he undergo gender affirming medical treatments. However, he said his father refused the treatment, something for which he said he is now grateful.
“The law in West Virginia says that if you get the sign-off from two doctors, you can receive puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones,” Price said. “In my case, I had four who would have done that.”
Chantel Weisenmuller, president of the West Virginia Psychological Association, told lawmakers that stopping gender affirming care for teenagers is risky and detrimental to their health.
“As a psychologist, that is a very frightening prospect for me,” Weisenmuller said. “Because from clinical lived experience, whenever folks suddenly lose access to this necessary, evidence-based, best practice medical treatment, we see a marked, significant, intense escalation in depression, anxiety and suicide, suicidality.”
The bill now heads to the governor’s desk.
