A state legislative committee meeting Monday turned contentious over a bill which could make it more difficult for transgender minors to access gender-affirming medical care in Arkansas.
The debate is a familiar one; the state became the first in the nation in 2021 to ban gender-affirming healthcare, like puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for people under the age of 18. That law has been on hold pending the resolution of a legal challenge against it.
Senate Bill 199 differs from the 2021 law, known as the SAFE Act, in that it creates what’s known as a “private right of action” allowing people to sue individual healthcare providers as many as 30 years after receiving treatment if they can prove “injury.”
Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, is the bill’s sponsor. Speaking to members of the Senate Judiciary committee on Monday, he said its designed to serve as a deterrent for healthcare providers rather than an outright ban on gender-affirming care.
“There’s no such thing as gender-affirming care. You cannot affirm something that does not exist. What does exist is chemical castration, sterilization and surgical mutilation. What we need is legal accountability,” Stubblefield said. “Patients who have undergone physical, medical gender treatments as minors should be able to sue doctors and hospitals that perform the treatment.”
Stubblefield also accused hospitals and clinics which provide gender-affirming care to minors as being motivated solely by profit, and also accused the Chinese Communist Party of influencing children through the app TikTok to question their gender identity.
A number of Republican lawmakers likened treatments for gender dysphoria for minors to child abuse, citing an increased risk of suicide and self-harm among those who identify as transgender. Courtney Frierson, a licensed social worker who spoke against the bill, said anti-trans rhetoric and laws have more to do with that metric.
"The suicide risk is not because of their gender identity, it’s because they’re at higher risk of how they’re stigmatized in society; for example, laws like this that create a public discourse and people who are uninformed, uneducated making decisions about their bodies is very threatening,” Frierson said, likening some of lawmakers’ remarks to “violence against my transgender siblings.”
Perhaps the most contentious moment of Monday’s committee meeting came from freshman Sen. Matt McKee, R-Pearcy, who openly questioned a transgender pharmacist speaking against the bill about her genitalia.
“That’s horrible,” said the pharmacist, Gwendolyn Herzig, as members of the public audibly commented “shameful” and “disgraceful.”
“That question was highly inappropriate… I’m not going to answer that question. I’m a healthcare professional, please treat me as such,” she said.
Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, was the lone committee member to vote against the bill. He said it could set a dangerous precedent where states could weaken rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution—in this case, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“What’s to prevent another state from passing a law that says every gun dealer who sells a gun is responsible and liable for all damages caused by that gun for a statute of limitations period of 30 years? That’s not infringing on the Second Amendment because the state’s not saying you can’t own a gun, it’s just a private right of action for liability that’s related to a constitutional right,” Tucker said.
Stubblefield, said he believes the need to protect children from so-called “irreversible” medical procedures should supersede any question of constitutionality.
"Every one of those rights you referred to has a duty connected with it. Just because you have the right to free speech doesn’t mean you have the right to run into a theatre and yell ‘fire,’” Stubblefield said.
Numerous members of the public testified in Monday’s committee meeting that irreversible gender-affirming treatments, like surgeries, have not been provided to minors in Arkansas. Tucker also voiced concerns the bill would create a standard of care for gender dysphoria based on lawmakers’ own opinions and research, rather than accepted conclusions of major American medical associations.
Public comment was limited to two minutes for each member of the public in Monday’s committee meeting, all of whom except one spoke against it. Senate Bill 199 now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
