The West Virginia Senate on Wednesday advanced a bill that would restrict access to puberty blockers and hormone treatment for West Virginia youths being treated for gender dysphoria.
House Bill 2007, as introduced, would have banned only gender-confirmation surgery for anyone under 18, but was amended to include puberty blockers and hormone treatment therapy before it advanced out of the House of Delegates last month.
On Wednesday, the Senate took up the bill during an evening floor session that began only minutes after the Judiciary Committee approved the legislation without discussion. The Senate read the bill a first time and advanced it to second reading. The only change the Senate has made so far, other than a title amendment, is to make the legislation effective July 1, 2024, if passed.
Scheduled to convene at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee had a full agenda, which included HB 2007 near the end. However, the 11 a.m. Senate floor session ran long and went into recess, to be continued at 4:30 p.m., after the afternoon committee meetings.
The Judiciary Committee was unable to make it through the agenda before the floor session was scheduled to reconvene. Committee Chairman Charles Trump, R-Morgan, declared a recess shortly before 4:30 p.m., only to be directed back into committee, apparently with instructions from Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, to take up and dispose of the HB 2007 within five minutes, if possible.
“Here’s what the plan is that the president has suggested. And that is to take up and dispose of 2007, if we can dispose of it within five minutes,” Trump said.
Other bills on the committee’s agenda were to be reported to the floor, where they would be read a first time, then returned to committee, Trump said.
The full Senate reconvened at about 5:30 p.m.
HB 2007 has been debated heavily during this legislative session and drew an overwhelmingly negative response at a public hearing last month at the Capitol.
Most recently, the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee heard testimony last week from Dr. Kacie Kidd, medical director of the West Virginia University Gender and Sexual Development Multidisciplinary Clinic, who discussed potential negative effects of HB 2007.
The bill would have a devastating effect on hundreds of patients in West Virginia who are being treated for gender dysphoria, which is described in the Diagnostics and Statics Manual IV, Kidd said. Removing access to gender-confirmation care places patients at serious risk of depression, social isolation, self-hatred, self-harm and suicide, she said.
Treatment for gender dysphoria includes hours of extensive counseling and therapy before medical professionals determine whether puberty blockers or hormone treatment therapy are appropriate. It would take six to 12 months to take someone off these treatments voluntarily, but that rarely happens, Kidd said.
After hearing from Kidd during last week’s meeting, Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, who is a doctor, made several attempts to amend the bill to restore access to puberty blockers and hormone treatment therapy.
“We, as a Legislative body, I feel are taking a dramatic overreach when we’re stepping into a field of medicine, where it is proven, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, that a patient does matter, their mental health, their ability to function. Their suffering is made less by therapy,” Takubo said. “I cannot, in good conscience, leave this section of the bill, when we know the facts are that this therapy does improve the functionality of a child. It decreases suicide rates. It helps with their mental health.”
Roger Adkins covers politics. He can be reached at 304-348-4814 or email radkins
