Daily Montanan: Lawmakers sign off on governor’s amendments to bill banning gender-affirming care

Excerpt by Blair Miller

Along with banning gender-affirming care, Fuller’s Senate Bill 99 subjects physicians who provide gender-affirming care to discipline including the potential loss or suspension of their license, allows the attorney general to seek actions against providers, and allows a person who “suffers an injury” from gender-affirming care to bring civil claims against providers up to four years after they discover the injury.

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Hillary-Anne Crosby, a spokesperson for the Montana Sexual and Reproductive Health Collective, said the organization would continue advocating for transgender youth and their families regardless of what the legislature and governor decide.

“There is not an amendment that could fix Senate Bill 99. Gov. Gianforte’s amendment only doubles down on a bill attacking Montana’s amazing trans youth when what they deserve is access to medically accurate information and the full breadth of safe, legal health care options,” Crosby said in a statement. “No person’s body should be policed and young people must be supported in deciding what gender-affirming care is right for them with their medical providers and families.

Throughout the 2023 session, transgender children and their parents, transgender adults, and many in the medical community have testified in opposition to the bill, saying it would not only harm transgender youth and increase suicidal ideation among them, it was also a violation of their constitutional right to privacy.