S.D. doctors could face charges for treating trans teenagers

A “bathroom bill” to regulate the restroom choice of transgender people has failed in South Dakota. So has a bill that would have required high school athletes to play on a sports team according to their sex at birth, not their gender identity.

But it is a new year and a new legislative session, and a group of South Dakota lawmakers is trying to pass a new restriction on transgender teenagers that the lawmakers say would prevent unnecessary medical procedures.

The proposed law, which is expected to go up for a vote in the state’s House of Representatives on Monday, would bar doctors from prescribing hormones or puberty-blocking medication or performing transgender surgeries on anyone under age 16.

The bill has strong support from social conservatives in the Republican-controlled Legislature, who believe it would enforce a common-sense view: that transgender youths under 16 are too young to begin taking medication or hormones.

But rural libertarians, Democrats, transgender people and the medical community have lined up against it, saying that it would harm transgender teenagers who greatly benefit from those treatments, particularly puberty blockers. Doctors have been particularly appalled; they could face criminal charges and jail time for violating the new law, should it pass the Legislature and be signed by Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican who has expressed concerns about it.

“I’ve heard ‘It interferes with parental rights,’ and that ‘doctor knows best,’” said Rep. Lee Qualm, a Republican who is the House majority leader and a sponsor of the bill.

“I understand people can go a lot of ways on this,” Qualm said.

Of his constituents who have emailed him, he said, “it’s almost a 50-50 split.”

Rep. Fred Deutsch, who introduced the bill, said he got the idea when he was surfing the internet last year. He said he had heard about people in other states who regretted transitioning from one gender to another, and wondered whether such treatments were o≠ered in his state.

“I Googled ‘transgender medicine South Dakota’ and I found a handful of doctors, not many, that do the procedures,” said Deutsch, who also introduced the bathroom bill in 2016. “And that’s the genesis of the concept of this bill.”

Deutsch, a chiropractor, said he had received input on the legislation from the Kelsey Coalition, a parent group that opposes hormone treatment for transgender children, and the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., whose leaders declined an interview request, as well as other groups. Deutsch said he had also given drafts of his bill to lawmakers in other states considering similar measures.

“This bill came out of that feeling of, We need to protect our children,” he said, comparing the legislation to a “pause button.” “When you turn 16 you can do whatever you want. But by golly, can’t you just wait before you take these.

It is relatively uncommon for teenagers in South Dakota to undergo gender-a∞rming surgery, such as mastectomies for transgender boys, because most medical professionals advise waiting until adulthood for permanent procedures. The bill would a≠ect far more teenagers who are prescribed puberty blockers, injections or implants that are frequently administered to children who are experiencing gender dysphoria as a way to pause the process of puberty.

But those treatments worry advocates of the bill, who say they are concerned that children are not old enough to decide whether they want to delay puberty.