“… protecting minors from the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and other related actions, procedures, and treatments.”

On April 5, 2021, North Carolina Senators Hise, Daniel, and Sanderson introduced SB 514, the Youth Health Protection Act, for the purpose of –

“… protecting minors from the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and other related actions, procedures, and treatments.”

Specific findings include, among others, the following:

1. The sex of a person is the biological state of being female or male, based on sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profiles, and is genetically encoded into a person at the moment of conception, and it cannot be changed;
2. Some individuals, including minors, may experience discordance between their sex and their internal sense of identity, and individuals who experience severe psychological distress as a result of this discordance may be diagnosed with gender dysphoria;
3. The cause of the individual's impression of discordance between sex and identity is unknown, and the diagnosis is based exclusively on the individual's self-report of feelings and beliefs;
4. This internal sense of discordance is not permanent or fixed, but to the contrary, numerous studies have shown that a substantial majority of children who experience discordance between their sex and identity will outgrow the discordance once they go through puberty and will eventually have an identity that aligns with their sex;
5. Taking a "wait-and-see" approach to children who reveal signs of gender nonconformity results in a large majority of those children resolving to an identity congruent with their sex by late adolescence;
6. Some in the medical community are aggressively pushing for interventions on minors that medically alter the child's hormonal balance and remove healthy external and internal sex organs when the child expresses a desire to appear as a sex different from his or her own;
7. In the case of prepubertal children, as puberty begins, doctors then administer long-acting puberty blockers that suppress the pubertal development of the child. This use of puberty blockers for gender nonconforming children is experimental and not FDA-approved;
8. After puberty blockade, the child is later administered "cross-sex" hormonal treatments that induce the development of secondary sex characteristics of the other sex, such as causing the development of breasts and wider hips in male children taking estrogen and greater muscle mass, bone density, body hair, and a deeper voice in female children taking testosterone.
9. This unproven, poorly studied series of interventions results in numerous harmful effects for minors, as well as risks of effects simply unknown due to the new and experimental nature of these interventions;
10. Several studies demonstrate that hormonal and surgical interventions often do not resolve the underlying psychological issues affecting the individual. For example, individuals who undergo cross-sex cosmetic surgical procedures have been found to suffer from elevated mortality rates higher than the general population. They experience significantly higher rates of substance abuse, depression, and psychiatric hospitalizations; and
11. The decision to pursue a course of hormonal and surgical interventions to address a discordance between the individual's sex and sense of identity should not be presented to or determined for minors who are incapable of comprehending the negative implications and life-course difficulties attending to these interventions.

As a result, SB 514 makes it illegal for any individual to provide, or perform or have performed on a minor:

1. Surgeries that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty.
2. A mastectomy.
3. Medications that induce transient or permanent infertility, such as puberty-blocking medication to stop or delay normal puberty, supraphysiologic doses of testosterone or other androgens to members of the female sex, and supraphysiologic doses of estrogen or synthetic compounds with estrogenic activity to members of the male sex.
4. The removal of any otherwise healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue.

Providing counsel, advice, guidance, or any other speech or communication, whether described as therapy or provided for a fee, consistent with conscience or religious belief is lawful.  In addition, parents, guardians or custodians, in exercising the fundamental right to care for their child, may withhold consent for any treatment, activity, or mental health care services that are designed and intended to form their child's conceptions of sex and gender or to treat gender dysphoria or gender nonconformity. Information may not be intentionally withheld from parents, guardians or custodians if a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria, gender nonconformity, or otherwise demonstrates a desire to be treated in a manner incongruent with the minor's sex.

Whistleblower are protected from retaliation and no political subdivision may enact or adopt an order, ordinance, rule, regulation, or policy that interferes with the professional conduct and judgment of a mental health care professional or counselor.

Moreover, State funds may not be used, directly or indirectly, for the performance of or in furtherance of gender transition procedures or to support the administration of any governmental health plan or government-offered insurance policy offering gender transition procedures.

Cosponsors of this Bill are:  Edwards; Krawiec; Newton; and Steinburg.

I hope this is of value!

Demetria Carter