Advocacy groups are criticizing a new Tennessee law, House Bill 1665, signed in April by Gov. Bill Lee (R), which prohibits doctors from asking minor patients questions about gender. The law takes effect in October. Advocacy groups say it’s an “unnecessary” attack on the LGBTQ+ community and likely disastrous for children suffering from gender dysphoria.
“Everyone should be alarmed by the scale of government control over doctors’ and patients’ speech under this law,” say the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in a new report detailing the corrosive effects of the law.
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The law requires that medical providers inform parents before doctors ask children “sensitive” gender questions. It also prohibits insurance companies and managed care groups from asking gender-related questions on medical questionnaires.
According to TEP and HRC’s report, the law is based on an assertion by its legislative sponsors that “asking minor patients questions about gender identity in clinical settings is upsetting and confuses or influences them into being transgender.” No Democrats voted in favor of the bill.
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The report asserts there is no empirical evidence to confirm the bill’s claim that asking minors a “yes/no” question about gender identity is “coercive or causative” of transgender identity. The report also provided data supporting the importance of physicians’ freedom to address gender with their young patients.
The report calls the law a form of “medical censorship” that could result in “costly litigation.”
“Asking minors objective questions about gender identity is necessary to access developmentally appropriate and life-saving health prevention services. Our report clearly outlines the ways laws that intimidate doctors through medical censorship will lead to more mental distress and even worse health outcomes for transgender, gender diverse and intersex minors,” Bean Chapman, legislative analyst for Equality Project, said in a statement reported by the Tennessee Lookout.
“This shameful law will have dire consequences for minors rejected by their families and those whose only access to mental health is with their doctor.”
State Rep. Justin Pearson (D), a vocal ally of the LGBTQ+ community, said in debate that the legislation was another in a long line of “homophobic” bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
Gender dysphoria exists, Pearson said, and added, “To try and put more barriers for doctors to be able to have intentional, meaningful conversations with children who may be experiencing gender dysphoria is wrong.”
Denying it undermines existing Tennessee law and policy, the TEP and HRC’s report says.
Current Tennessee laws allow physicians to screen LGBTQ+ minors for high-risk behavior, like substance abuse and exposure to sexually transmitted diseases. Those screenings could be prevented under the new law. Existing Tennessee laws also explicitly permit doctors to treat mature minors for specific health conditions without parental permission.
The new law conflicts with insurers’ collection of demographic data on patients’ sex and gender that are necessary for payment, accreditation, and quality assurance, public health research, and compliance with existing state and federal laws, the TEP and HRC report says.
Transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex patients are legally protected from medical and insurance discrimination by numerous civil rights laws, the report adds.
The new ban on gender questions for minor patients follows Tennessee’s law, upheld by the Supreme Court last year in U.S. v. Skrmetti, that outlaws gender-affirming care for trans youth.
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