Jefferson City, Missouri — Transgender minors and some adults in Missouri will soon have limited access to puberty blockers, hormones, gender reassignment surgery and even some school sports teams Become. bill signed Wednesday by the state’s Republican governor.
Beginning August 28, Missouri health care providers will not be able to prescribe gender-affirming treatments to teens and children. Most adults can still legally get transgender medical care, but Medicaid doesn’t cover it.
Sex reassignment surgery for prisoners and prisoners will be outlawed.
The law is set to expire in 2027 as part of a compromise between Republicans and Senate Democrats.
Gov. Mike Parson also signed a bill Wednesday that would bar transgender girls and women from playing on women’s sports teams from kindergarten to college. Both public and private schools face the loss of all national funds for violations of the law.
Parson has called on the Republican-led Congress to pass the bill in the final weeks of the session, threatening to continue the bill after the session ends on May 12 if it doesn’t.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate promised to pass the bill months ago, but the two houses disagreed on how much to limit the ban.
The House eventually took up a toned-down version of the Senate’s health care bill, which includes an exception that allows transgender minors to continue receiving gender-affirming medical care if they have already started treatment.
Missouri’s ban comes amid a nationwide push by conservatives to put restrictions on transgender and nonbinary people, and abortion is a major theme in this year’s legislature.
A legal objection to the law is possible. When the Missouri legislature first passed the bill, the Missouri ACLU said it “continues to consider all options to combat these bans and expand the rights of Trans-Missouri people.”
Family planning clinics in the state are increasing appointments and holding pop-up clinics to start treating patients before the law takes effect.
“We are committed to ensuring that every patient is supported, seen and cared for,” Yamercy Rodriguez, president and CEO of Family Planning Organizations in the St. Louis Area and Southwest Missouri, said in a statement. We will do our best,” he said in a statement. “Any patient wishing to continue gender-affirming care in a state that welcomes people of all identities, the Health Center in Fairview Heights, IL welcomes you. I will help you put it up.”
Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is currently running for re-election, launched an investigation into the University of Washington Transgender Center in St. Louis in February. Former staffers complained doctors were rushing to prescribe hormones and not enough comprehensive mental health services. An internal investigation at the University of Washington found no wrongdoing.
Bailey has since expanded his investigation to clinics in Missouri that provide pediatric gender-affirmation care, and has requested records from the family planning system in St. Louis, where doctors provide such care.
In April, Bailey took the novel step of imposing restrictions on adults as well as children under Missouri’s consumer protection law. A judge has temporarily blocked the entry into force as he considers legal challenges.
