Texas lawmaker proposes bill to ban gender transition treatment for everyone, including adults

A Texas state lawmaker introduced legislation that would amend the state’s ban on gender transition procedures or treatment for minors to also apply to adults in the Lone Star State.

H.B. 3399 filed by Rep. Brent Money, a Republican, would change the language in the current law banning gender-transitioning procedures or treatment for children by replacing the word “child” with “person.”

Money’s proposal would prohibit medical procedures “for the purpose of transitioning a person’s biological sex” or “affirming the person’s perception of the person’s sex” if the perception is not consistent with the person’s biological sex.

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Surgeries and puberty-blocking drugs would be banned for all Texans under the bill, with exceptions for a doctor prescribing puberty-blocking drugs to a child with parental consent to normalize puberty and for surgery on a person born with a “verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.”

People who have already started puberty-blocking medications must be weaned off the drugs in a “medically appropriate” manner that “minimizes the risk of complications.”

Texas has an estimated 93,000 transgender adults, making it the state with the third-most, behind only California and Florida, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law. About 30,000 Texans between the ages of 13 and 18 are transgender, also making it the state with the third-most, behind California and New York.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed a bill in 2023 banning gender-transitioning treatment for transgender youth after the measure was approved by the state legislature.

The law was challenged in the Texas Supreme Court, with the lawsuit that sought to block the law arguing that the ban has devastating consequences for transgender teenagers who are unable to obtain treatment recommended by their doctors and parents, according to Fox 7.

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But the court upheld the ban last summer in an 8-1 decision. Only one justice dissented, saying the state Supreme Court was allowing the state to “legislate away fundamental parental rights.”

Texas is one of at least 25 states with laws restricting or banning gender-transitioning treatment for transgender minors.