Lawmakers in Tennessee have taken yet another step to finalizing a ban against the practice of child sex change procedures in the state.
Known as SB 0001, the new bill seeks to set up a ban against pediatric medical transition for the entire state of Tennessee and is quickly being pushed forward after having made it through a Senate committee with a vote of 8-1 this past Wednesday. It is now slated to hit the state Senate Judiciary Committee this coming Tuesday.
“From the very beginning, the doctors were negligent,” stated Chloe Cole, a de-transitioner from California who is 18 years old, and is permanently scarred from being subjected to a double mastectomy surgery in order to have her breasts removed at 15. “They treated me as if I were an adult who was capable of making informed lifelong decisions that would affect every area of my life — from socialization and relationships to sexual function and my ability to have children.”
According to NewsChannel 5, a local news station, the committee was held in Cordell Hull in Nashville to a packed audience. This bill will still need to get past additional committees and the House and Senate chambers before it gets handed over to Governor Bill Lee for further review.
Tennessee Majority Leaders William Lamberth and Jack Johnson, who both identity as Republicans, brought forth the Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act last November, which in effect bans all doctors from handing out cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and performing gender-related surgeries on kids for the sole purpose of carrying out a medical transition. It would also let patients and their families issue lawsuits for damages and let the courts impose another $25,000 penalty for every single violation.
“The bill would clarify that performing these medical procedures can constitute abuse,” explained Johnson. “The bill would treat these procedures as our law treats other attempts to wound, injure or disable a child.”
The pair of Republican legislators put in writing the bill this past September in the wake of Matt Walsh putting out a viral video of a medical professional from a Nashville university hospital in which they made reference to these gender-transition procedures as “huge money makers.”
“Interfering or destroying the healthy, normal reproductive organs of a child for the purpose of altering their appearance is profoundly unethical and morally wrong,” stated Lamberth. “Tennesseans across our state have demanded an immediate call to action.”
“Through the passage of House Bill 1/Senate Bill 1, Tennessee will protect vulnerable children who cannot give informed consent for adult decisions they aren’t ready for,” concluded Lamberth.
