The South Dakota House will vote this week on a bill that would make it a crime to offer hormone treatment to or perform physical transition procedures on minors 16 and under. The legislation is a reasonable measure that protects the rights of transgender youths while guarding them from the life-changing consequences of a decision they cannot unmake. The state House should pass it.
Radical transgender activists have already slammed the bill as an intrusion that will do more harm than good. Their criticisms would be worth a lot more if these same people were not intent on allowing children as young as 3 to transition socially, and those as young as 10 to block puberty deliberately. Their radicalism requires a response, and this bill provides one.
Dubbed the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, the legislation would still allow minors to transition socially. Physical measures, however, including hormone treatment, puberty blockers, or surgical procedures, would not be permissible until a child reaches a certain level of maturity. This ensures that the choice to transition is the individual’s and no one else’s.
State Rep. Fred Deutsch, the bill’s sponsor, said to think of the act as a “pause button.” The choice of switching genders is the choice to become a different person. It should not be taken lightly. Indeed, it’s “overwhelming” and “life-changing,” says Deutsch, and the consequences of this physical alteration are permanent.
Children should not be exposed to these kinds of consequences at such an early age because the feelings of minors are unreliable and prone to manipulation. Multiple clinicians have already remarked that it is legally impossible “to obtain informed consent from the underaged patient,” according to the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The law already protects minors from potentially damaging effects: Alcohol is not legally permitted until the age of 21, in part because of the way alcoholic substances affect the brain.
Yet, we would allow a 15-year-old to alter his body’s chemistry by undergoing hormone therapy? (Yes, a 2017 study conducted by the Journal admitted that at least 11 surgeons had performed a vaginoplasty, i.e., the procedure in which surgeons remove a penis and construct a vagina, on children under 18 years old, the youngest being 15 years old).
The nature of physical treatment should also warrant caution. One U.K. surgeon described transgenderism as the medical “Wild West,” “a bunch of solo practitioners, basically cowboys or cowgirls who kind of build their little house, advertise, and suck people in,” according to the Times of London. Even the doctors we trust to assist gender-confused youths adequately are unsure whether the procedures will work or how they will affect the minors long-term. Yet transgender activists would have us do more than just accept this; they’d have us celebrate it.
There is some evidence that affirmation, both social and physical, helps gender-confused individuals in the long run. But that must be weighed against the potential negative effects. Dozens of former transgender individuals are on the record expressing regret for the decision they made when they were young — surely that must count for something?
South Dakota Gov. Kirsti Noem has some reasonable concerns about the bill, largely about the parental role this legislation aims to replace. Her concerns are well placed. Parental rights must be respected, and no matter how hard the state tries, it will not adequately fill the role of the family.
But this bill protects parents, too. At least a handful of cases have popped up across the country over the past year in which parents have been told by transgender activists to either accept their child’s social and physical transition or lose their child to the state. This bill would ensure that parents won’t be punished for their concerns about gender dysphoria by completely removing the option of physical transition until a certain age.
The American Civil Liberties Union will undoubtedly take the Vulnerable Child Protection Act to court if it is signed into law. But that should not intimidate South Dakota lawmakers from doing the right thing and shielding the state’s children from the irreparable harm caused by physical transitions. If transgender activists have their way, any child at any age will be allowed (and even encouraged!) to alter their bodies and minds permanently. The line must be drawn somewhere, and this bill is a good place to start.
