Idaho trans kids fear losing gender-affirming medical care as bill moves to House floor
Victor Pruett no longer spends his lunch hour in the school cafeteria. The 13-year-old student living in Idaho Falls said bullies keep targeting him for being transgender, and the fear has become too great.
“Every day, I feel like someone is going to do something to me at school,” Pruett told the Idaho Statesman by phone.
Pruett came out as transgender in late 2021 and already finds himself dealing with bullies on a regular basis. He wants to eventually take medication, like puberty blockers and hormones, so that he can feel more comfortable in his body.
“I want to feel more like a man, because I don’t like how feminine I am,” he said.
But he may not get that chance. A bill that would criminalize medical providers in the state for providing gender-affirming care for transgender children sailed through a committee hearing Friday in the Idaho Legislature, and now awaits a vote by the full House.
The bill not only bans gender-reassignment surgeries, which typically aren’t performed on minors, but also bans any kind of medication a child might take to have their body more accurately reflect their gender identity. It would amend an existing law that bans female genital mutilation.
Surgeries for trans minors remain rare
Bill sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Nampa Republican, declined to comment for this story. But he told the House State Affairs Committee that children were too young to make potentially permanent decisions about their gender.
“If we do not allow minors to get a tattoo, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, why would you allow them to go through these physical mutilations because of their feelings at the time?” Skaug said. “Our world is changing, and not in a good way.”
Should the bill become law, Idaho would become the fourth state — after Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee — to ban transition-related care for minors. Legal challenges have already been filed against those laws.
Multiple transgender children in Idaho testified about their experience with gender-affirming care. Eve Devitt, a 16-year-old transgender girl in Boise, told legislators the prospect of going through puberty as a man made her contemplate suicide.
“The only reason that I’m still alive today is because I was able to get the care that I needed,” she said. “This bill threatens to put me and so many other kids like me back into that horrible mental state that I was in before I started hormones.”
Much of the hearing focused on the potential for Idaho children to receive gender reassignment surgeries. Skaug said he had been told of instances of it happening in Idaho but did not provide specific examples.
Dr. Ashley Davis, a family practice physician in Boise, told the Idaho Statesman she’s been treating transgender adults and children for 15 years and has never seen a child who received any gender reassignment surgeries.
“I’ve never seen any kind of bottom surgery done (on children),” Davis said by phone. “No one’s mutilating anyone.”
She said a decision for a child to start gender-affirming care usually comes after several long discussions with the child and their parents.
American Medical Association opposes Idaho bill
Multiple studies support gender-affirming treatment for transgender children, who are more at risk of self-harm and suicide. That includes a 2021 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health that found such treatments could reduce depression in minors experiencing gender dysphoria by up to 40%.
Skaug and others testifying in favor of the bill said there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest these treatments had an impact on mental health.
LGBTQ advocates argued that eliminating access to these kinds of care could worsen a child’s gender dysphoria, which could have dire physical and mental consequences.
Last year, the American Medical Association urged governors to oppose any bills that restrict access to gender-affirming care, saying that doing so “could lead to tragic health consequences, both mental and physical.” A representative of the Idaho Medical Association also testified against the bill on Friday.
Most of those speaking in favor of the bill were not in Idaho, and many have regularly testified for anti-transgender legislation across the country.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, an endocrinologist in Georgia, testified in Friday’s hearing, and has testified in Pennsylvania and Ohio in favor of anti-transgender laws in those states. A Texas judge ruled in 2020 that Van Meter could not offer expert testimony on transgender issues affecting children.
It’s not the first time the Idaho Legislature has considered legislation that would restrict the rights of transgender children. Gov. Brad Little signed a 2020 bill into law that prevented transgender girls from playing on women’s sports teams, the first instance of a law that was soon mimicked in statehouses across the U.S.
Transgender children in Idaho will have to wait for the rest of the Legislature to decide on the latest bill. For Pruett, the potential of not receiving medication in the future is “upsetting,” he said.
Jennifer Convery, Pruett’s mother, said that while they’ve lived in Idaho for less than a year, she’s starting to consider moving to a different state that would be more accepting, with laws that are friendlier to transgender children like her son.
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