AZGOP Bill SB 1130 Attacks Life-Saving Transgender Medical Care Merely to Signal Hate and Bigotry

It comes as no real surprise that Senator #WackoWendy Rogers has been named by the Anti-Defamation League as the most extreme and divisive politician in America. She gleefully seeks to be hateful, racist, xenophobic, and – not surprisingly – also bigoted against the LGBTQ+ community. She adds to her execrable reputation with her sponsorship of SB 1130 attacking and criminalizing transgender medical care of kids in Arizona.

This bill is abominable for several reasons beyond merely being a hateful signal to Rogers’ base that she’s supportive of legal attacks on the mere existence of trans children: it is also an unconscionable attack on the freedom of doctors and parents to make medical decisions in the best interest of children, criminalizes doctors seeking to literally save kids lives, and is embedded with misinformation and nonsense – promoting a false narrative of how doctors actually treat the medical issues of trans kids.

Let’s start with medical freedom to treat and the (probably?) unintended effects of this bill. It is a bad idea generally for non-physicians in any lawmaking body to attempt to dictate the treatment options of medical experts: legislators often simply don’t know what the hell they are talking about. In this case, one glaring problem is that the bill outlaws “ADMINISTERING, PRESCRIBING OR SUPPLYING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING MEDICATIONS THAT INDUCE TRANSIENT OR PERMANENT INFERTILITY: (a) PUBERTY-BLOCKING MEDICATION THAT STOPS OR DELAYS NORMAL PUBERTY” with truly harsh prison sentences, not to mention the licensing and reputational harm of a conviction for a dangerous crime against children.

This is a huge problem that has (probably?) unintended consequences for the treatment of non-trans kids. There are many non-trans children treated for early-onset puberty with puberty-blocking drugs: you can’t treat a five-year-old who is precociously starting puberty any other way. The bill does have a “good faith” clause, but it only extends to “MEDICALLY VERIFIABLE GENETIC DISORDER OF SEX DEVELOPMENT…” which precocious puberty is not.

Second, it removes parents’ rights to choose medically appropriate treatment of their children in conjunction with their doctors. No doctor could perform any of the listed procedures on a minor – like administering puberty-blocking medications – without parental consent, in any case. I thought that the GOP was up in arms about “medical freedom” and “parental choice”? Well, not so much when it comes to deciding what is best for your gender non-conforming and/or dysphoric child if that conflicts with the AZGOP’s political goal of signaling their bigotry and hatred of the gender non-conforming. In that case, State Senator Wendy Rogers and the narrow AZGOP majority in the state legislature will choose for you.

Third, It may not be common knowledge among the know-nothing trans-phobic AZGOP caucus, but it is well-established that trans kids have a devastating rate of suicide and suicide attempts. Up to 40% of trans kids attempt suicide because they are suffering so badly. Puberty blockers are a literally life-saving treatment for trans kids, and the AZGOP wants to make administering that life-saving treatment a crime.

Next, the bill contains straight-up misinformation and lies about how trans kids are actually medically treated. No physician is doing surgery on kids under 18 to change their sexual characteristics. The bill outlaws “PERFORMING SURGERIES THAT STERILIZE, INCLUDING CASTRATION, VASECTOMY, HYSTERECTOMY, OOPHORECTOMY, METOIDIOPLASTY, ORCHIECTOMY, PENECTOMY, PHALLOPLASTY AND VAGINOPLASTY” and “PERFORMING A MASTECTOMY” on children under 18. These procedures are simply not done on trans children for sex reassignment. No physician in Arizona, or anywhere, would perform such irreversible procedures on a minor “TO CHANGE THE CHILD’S… SEX OR TO AFFIRM THE CHILD’S… PERCEPTION OF THE CHILD’S… SEX IF THAT PERCEPTION IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE CHILD’S … SEX”.

Finally, there is no exception regarding any of these surgical procedures for medical necessity. What if a minor under 18 gets uterine, ovarian, breast, or testicular cancer? What if the only means of treating that patient is the surgical removal of the tissue? Sorry, kid, you have to die of cancer or your doctor goes to jail, thanks to the know-nothings of the trans-hating AZGOP.

This is truly and tragically moronic public policy. And I suspect there is a reason this bill is so terribly drafted: it is never meant to actually become law. It is simply abusing the legislative process to make a statement of hatred and threat against some of our most vulnerable and powerless citizens: trans kids. And that is certainly in line with the real priorities and bigoted predilections of the AZGOP. It’s time to stop their endless abuse of our constitution, the popular will of Arizona’s majority, and the legislative process by turning them out and electing a Democratic majority that will actually seek to improve the lives of Arizona’s citizens with reasonable and well-intended legislation.