On Saturday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 16 into law. Under SB0016, sex change operations or “gender-affirming” surgery for minors is banned in the Beehive State. The bill also places limitations on the use of hormone treatments and puberty blockers.
Along with banning sex change surgery for minors, the key takeaways from the bill are that the state Department of Health and Human Services will “conduct a systematic review of the medical evidence regarding hormonal transgender treatments and provide recommendations to the Legislature.” The bill also directs the Department of Professional Licensing to create a certification for providing hormonal transgender treatments, ensuring that healthcare providers will now need to meet certain requirements to prescribe those medications. It also prohibits providers from giving those treatments to “new patients who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria before a certain date.” Notably, the bill also allows patients to sue for malpractice for certain treatments and procedures. And, it specifies that under some circumstances, a patient can disaffirm at any time and can bring a malpractice action against the provider.
This bill not only keeps minors from getting permanent, life-altering surgery even before their brains are fully formed. It also gives providers who may want to push the trans agenda good reasons to think twice before administering hormone treatments and puberty blockers.
Related: Another Win for Sanity: Florida Medical Boards Ban Medical and Surgical Transition for Minors
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Mike Kennedy of Alpine. Kennedy is a physician and is probably best known for defeating Mitt Romney for the U.S. Senate nomination at the 2018 Utah GOP convention. He lost to Romney in the subsequent primary.
KUTV reports that Cox signed the bill, even though activists called for him to veto it. In a press release, Cox said:
Legislation that impacts our most vulnerable youth requires careful consideration and deliberation. While not a perfect bill, we are grateful for Sen. Kennedy’s more nuanced and thoughtful approach to this terribly divisive issue. More and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.
We will continue to push the Legislature for additional resources to organizations that work to help this important Utah community. While we understand our words will be of little comfort to those who disagree with us, we sincerely hope that we can treat our transgender families with more love and respect as we work to better understand the science and consequences behind these procedures.”
Cox has been accused of being a RINO, and he caught some heat over using his preferred pronouns during a video call with students in 2022. But even if Cox is trying to split the difference between Utah’s conservatives and progressives and somehow make everyone happy, and even if he is a RINO, he made a tough choice on Saturday.
He made the right choice.
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