Arizona is the latest of five state’s led by Republican lawmakers….
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona on Wednesday signed two bills into law targeting transgender youth in the state, including one that restricts access to gender-affirming health care for minors.
Ducey’s approval of the health care ban, as well as a law prohibiting transgender athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams at some schools in the state, comes as GOP-led states are pushing laws that opponents say further marginalize members of the transgender community. Oklahoma’s Republican governor approved a similar sports ban earlier Wednesday.
“A physician may not provide irreversible gender reassignment surgery to any individual who is under eighteen years of age,” reads the text of SB 1138, the health care ban. The bill makes some exceptions, including in the case of someone born intersex.
Arizona is the latest state to enact such a measure. Last year, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas overrode a veto from their governor to put their own health care ban on the books, and Tennessee has passed a similar ban….
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So far this year, GOP governors in Oklahoma, Iowa and South Dakota have enacted similar sports bans. Last week, Republican governors in Indiana and Utah vetoed transgender sports bans in their states, saying the measures were unnecessary. Lawmakers in Utah, however, later overrode their governor’s veto to enact the measure. In 2021, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia enacted similar sports bans.
Opponents of such bans have had limited legal success in fighting the measures. Last year, a federal judge temporarily blocked West Virginia’s enforcement of its ban after advocates for the athletes sued the state, with the judge saying he had “been provided with scant evidence that this law addresses any problem at all, let alone an important problem.” And in 2020, a federal judge blocked Idaho’s enforcement of its sports ban.