The Republican-majority House and Senate of North Carolina have voted to override the Democratic governor's vetoes on several measures that target transgender minors.
The three bills in concern were designed to make gender-affirming care for minors illegal, prevent transgender children from competing on girls' sports teams, and restrict discussions on gender and sexuality in schools.
One of the new bills, House Bill 808, outlaws gender transition treatments for minors. But placing restrictions on gender affirming care for trans children may do more harm than good — especially when careful psychiatric evaluation is prescribed before hormones are even a consideration.
NC Passes 3 Anti-Trans Bills
One of the first clinics in the southeast to provide gender affirming care to minors, the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care in Durham, N.C., has been treating patients since 2015. Every patient receives counseling, hormone treatments are prescribed only if they are deemed necessary, and children under 16 can only be given puberty blockers.
Clinic director Deanna Adkins said that the outcomes of hormonal treatments are "overwhelmingly positive," alleviating symptoms for 75 to 80 percent of patients in some studies. Under House Bill 808, this care may be considered "unlawful," forcing children and parents to seek potentially unsafe alternatives.
Known as the "Parents Bill of Rights," Senate Bill 49 requires schools to inform parents when their child goes by a different name and pronouns with teachers. It also includes a ban on gender and sexuality related discussions for K-4 students.
Last month, Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement on his vetoes of the bills: “For campaign purposes only, Republicans are serving up a triple threat of political culture wars using government to invade the rights and responsibilities of parents and doctors, hurting vulnerable children and damaging our state’s reputation and economy like they did with the harmful bathroom bill."
Cooper made a callback to the fraught history of House Bill 2, which mandated that North Carolinians use public bathrooms matching their sex assigned at birth. The bill was repealed by Cooper in 2017, though the state legislature's Republican supermajority prevented the governor from adding full statewide protections for LGBTQ+ residents of the state.
On Wednesday, Cooper stated that N.C. Republicans had the "wrong priorities," focusing on culture wars when the state desperately needs a budget to be passed by the end of the month.
