Advocacy Alert: Wyoming Attacking Gender Affirming Care For Youth

Wyoming has filed two bills that seek to ban gender affirming care for transgender and gender diverse youth.

Senate File SF0111:

This bill passed out of the Wyoming Senate Labor committee this morning, January 27th.

• would make gender affirming care provided to anyone under 18 illegal
• adds gender affirming care to minors to the definition of child abuse
  • consent of minor, parent(s) or guardian is not an allowable defense
  • punishable by imprisonment for up to ten years
• this does not apply to Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs,) where many children are subject to procedures without their consent
• if signed into law, it will go into effect on July 1, 2023

Let’s repeat: procedures or treatments WITH CONSENT will be termed child abuse, while procedures or treatments WITHOUT CONSENT will not.

Full text and status tracking of SF0111.

Senate File SF0144 “Chloe’s Law”:

• prohibits insurance coverage of gender affirming care for anyone under 18
• prohibits gender affirming care for anyone under 18. Included treatments are
  • “a surgery that sterilizes” including castration,” vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty
    • note: We have some questions about their understanding of metoidioplasty, penectomy, and phalloplasty, which don’t technically cease reproductive ability by themselves. Perhaps they could read our surgery series?
  • mastectomy (breast augmentation is not included in this bill)
  • puberty blockers, hormones
  • removing “any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue”
    • note: the bill language would allow gender affirming procedures such as breast augmentation, mastectomy for gynecomastia, and rhinoplasty to cisgender youth
  • treatment of youth with Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs) is excluded from this bill
• Would allow administrative disciplinary actions including suspension or revocation of licensing for medical professionals, including pharmacists
• Would go into effect on July 1, 2023 if passed

Full text and status tracking of SF0144.

Contact Wyoming Legislators

Wyoming doesn’t make it easy to contact their state lawmakers.

TACTIC: Contact legislators directly.

Use this map to identify representatives and senators by district. Clicking on a district will pop-up the contact details for that area’s legislator.

TACTIC: Subscribe to Wyoming Equality‘s newsletter and follow them on Instagram.

What to SAY:

We originally wrote this text in response to attacks on gender affirming care in Florida. We’ve edited it for Utah and Montana, and now Wyoming. Please feel free to adopt for your own use. You may always use a fake name/contact information to protect your safety, as letters to legislators become part of the public record.

See our original Florida letter text for citations of major articles about gender affirming care for youth. You can also read Dr. Crystal Beal’s response to legislatures moving to ban gender affirming care.

I urge you to vote no on SF0111 and SF0144. These bills would interfere with families making private medical decisions with their trusted medical providers and place marginalized youth in danger of being removed from loving, supportive homes.

The bill as written unjustly increases barriers to care for youth and families in Wyoming and ignores current accepted medical practice by relying on out-of-date and discredited articles. The current standards of care for transgender youth fully support initiation of hormone treatment when indicated and are agreed upon by 29 major medical organizations and associations, including:

American Academy of Pediatrics
The Endocrine Society
The Pediatric Endocrine Society
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Family Physicians
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American College of Physicians
American Medical Association
American Osteopathic Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Public Health Association
World Professional Association For Transgender Health

The body of evidence supporting gender affirming care for youth with gender dysphoria is strong and growing. The majority of well-regarded medical organizations and associations have already reviewed the evidence and have concluded that gender affirming care is the best medical practice.

The assertion that gender affirming care is extreme or rushed, or is not well understood by those who seek it, or that there is a high rate of regret is scientifically unsupported and simply untrue. While there is growing interest in initializing gender affirming care for youth, genital surgeries remain unavailable before the age of 18. Some transgender youth are able to obtain mastectomies and mammoplasties, but so are cisgender youth. The language of SF0144 appears to fully support gender affirming procedures such as breast augmentation, mastectomy for gynecomastia, and rhinoplasty for cisgender youth, but prohibits them for transgender youth and terms them child abuse when sought by transgender youth in SF0111. This is medical discrimination.

It is rich irony for the Equality State to encode medical discrimination into law.

I urge you to vote no on SF0111 and SF0144.