SALT LAKE CITY — Drew Armstrong’s son had gender-affirming top surgery when he was 17.
“It kept him alive," he said. "It is the standard procedure to help kids who are suffering from suicide-inducing gender dysphoria.”
Split into party lines this afternoon, the Health and Human Services Interim Committee members voted on Republican Senator Michael Kennedy’s Sex Characteristic Surgical Procedures bill.
“We all make decisions even now that we regret," he said. "Permanent decisions made as a child are fraught with possibilities for regret.”
The bill, if it becomes law, would prohibit minors from getting typically rare gender-affirming surgeries, commonly known as ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ surgeries. The bill does not prohibit puberty blockers or hormone treatments.
“We're not forbidding these individuals from pursuing transgender care," said Kennedy. "What we're saying is that minors, with the immutable change or the permanent change associated with surgery, that they are should not be allowed to do that.”
Republican Representative Jacob Anderegg put his support behind Senator Kennedy’s bill.
“10,12 years ago, a lot of the Scandinavian countries, getting out ahead on this issue passing legislation, gender-affirming legislation, surgeries, whatever the case might be, they are now in the process of repealing a lot of those pieces of legislation because they found that the suicide rates did not decrease," he said. "They actually increased.”
Even though the bill has a ways to go before it becomes law, it will start impacting Utah’s transgender youth now, said Sue Robbins, a member of Equality Utah's Transgender Advisory Council.
“A lot of the harm going to happen while we're talking about the bill," she said. "They'll see their humanity debated.”
Since the vote was not unanimous, it will have to go through two more rounds of committee hearings.
