Thanks to outstanding work from Matt Walsh, calls to ban transgender surgeries for minors have gained a lot of traction in red states. In West Virginia, Delegate Geoff Foster (R - Putnam) others have sponsored HB 2007, which would put an end to so-called “gender-affirming” care in the state. The bill passed the House Health and Human Resource Committee on January 20th and was referenced to the House Judiciary Committee for further discussion. Yesterday, January 30th, the bill was brought to the floor of the Judiciary Committee. Delegate Todd Kirby (R - Raleigh), a co-sponsor of the bill and member of the committee, said that the discussion on the bill “went well” and that it should be going to the House floor for a vote soon.
Some may think that these surgeries only take place in more left-leaning states like California, but WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital starts offering “gender-affirming” care to kids as young as 3 years old. As you can see in the screenshots below, their website once listed the many services they offered to teens including menstrual suppression medication, pubertal blocking medication, and gender-affirming hormones. This information has since been removed from their website following recent backlash.
If you would like to help get this bill signed into law, please contact House Speaker Roger Hanshaw and ask him to bring HB 2007 to the House floor for a vote. I also created a petition seeking for these surgeries to be banned, which I sent to several members of the West Virginia Legislature. You can sign that petition here. Lastly, if you would like to get more involved in promoting conservative ideas in the Legislature, you can go to conaction.network to sign up for our WV Liberty Strike Force team.
Hopefully it will pass...