Supporters and opponents testified for about seven hours Wednesday on State Senator Kathleen Kauth’s proposal to ban gender-altering care for minors in Nebraska.
Legislative Bill 574, known as the “Let Them Grow Act,” would prohibit health care providers from administering to patients younger than 19 years of age medical interventions such as puberty blockers, hormone treatments and genital or non-genital surgeries for gender dysphoria. The proposal would also ban providers from offering referrals and would allow for a civil penalty against physicians who offer the care.
Kauth says Gender-affirming counseling or other therapies would not be banned. She told the Health and Human Services Committee that her bill is designed to protect kids with gender dysphoria from “irreversible, destructive, experimental” medical care until they reach adulthood, offering support during adolescence.
“Once the intensity of the treatment and surgeries are complete, these individuals are still dealing with issues that the surgeries have only made more complex,” Kauth said.
Opponents of Kauth’s bill, including Mike Hornacek, who is the parent of a transgender child, said the legislation would be an “extreme intrusion” into his family’s medical decisions.
“It says that we do not have a right to decide how best to care for and support each other as a family. Those decisions are not yours,” Hornacek said. “They are not anybody else’s, they are my family’s and nobody else’s.”
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