(Headline USA) Hospitals are refusing to perform gender and hormonal mutilations, even where it is legal.
In some states that have not banned gender mutilation, including Missouri and North Dakota, the mutilation procedures have abruptly been halted because medical providers are wary of harsh liability possibilities from those same laws — one of multiple reasons that advocates say care has become harder to access even where it remains legal.
Since last year, conservative lawmakers and governors have prioritized ending gender mutilation to protect children and adults.
At least 22 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender and hormonal mutilation for minors.
All the laws ban gender- mutilation surgery for minors.
There’s more variation, though, in how states handle hormonal mutilation with puberty-blockers and hormone ‘treatments’ under the new bans.
Georgia’s law does not ban starting puberty blockers for minors. The others do.
Some states, including North Carolina and Utah, allow young people who are already destroying their natural hormone balance to continue, as does Georgia. Others require the treatments to be phased out over time.
Medical institutions banning the mutilations cite a section of the law that increased the liability for providers. Under it, patients can sue for injury from the treatment until they turn 36, or even longer if the harm continues past then. The law gives the health care provider the burden of proving that the harm was not the result of hormones or puberty-blocking drugs. And the minimum damages awarded in such cases would be $500,000.
In North Dakota, the law allows mutilation to continue for minors who were receiving mutilation before the law took effect in April. At least some providers have stopped the care even though the ban that was eventually adopted did not include some of the details in an earlier proposed version.
Providers there have simply stopped gender-affirming care, said Brittany Stewart, a lawyer at Gender Justice, which is suing over the ban in the state.
“To protect themselves from criminal liability, they’ve just decided to not even risk it.” Stewart said.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
