Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has vetoed a ban on gender-affirming care for most minors in the state, the latest Democratic governor to push back on a GOP-led legislature’s efforts to restrict transgender youth’s access to such treatments.
The move sets the stage for a battle with the legislature’s Republican supermajority, which could vote to override his veto.
“It is unfathomable to think that in my last few months serving as governor of this state that I would sign into law a bill that categorically denies health care for children and families based on propaganda and misinformation generated by national interest groups,” Edwards, who is term-limited, wrote in a veto letter dated Thursday, saying the bill harms children.
“I assessed the need for this bill based on Louisiana data and facts and read every word of this bill multiple times to determine if there was any possible merit to this bill. There is not,” he continued later.
House Bill 648 would bar those under 18 in Louisiana from receiving gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blocking medications and hormone treatments, and punishes health care professionals that provide them with the revocation of their license for a minimum of two years.
Doctors who began providing such drug or hormone therapy to a minor before January 1, 2024, would be allowed to continue providing care through December 1, 2024, if they determine that “immediately terminating the minor’s use of the drug or hormone would cause harm to the minor.”
The bill passed the Republican-led legislature with strong support in early June – with the House voting 75-25 in favor and some Democrats crossing party lines in the Senate to advance the legislation by a vote of 29-10.
Gender-affirming care spans a range of evidence-based treatments and approaches that benefit transgender and…
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