Lawmakers in Washington have passed new legislation allowing the state to take away the children of parents who won’t consent to transitioning their child’s gender.
The bill also allows state officials to facilitate sex change surgeries, hormone therapy, and other gender transition treatments for minors, even against the wishes of a parent or legal guardian who might object.
Washington’s House of Representatives just passed Senate Bill 5599, which will now head to the desk of Gov. Jay Inslee, who is expected to sign the bill into law, making his state a “sanctuary state” for youth sex change operations.
The state’s legally defined “protected health care services” includes “gender affirming treatment” and abortions, according to the legislation. Gender affirming treatment refers to prescriptions from a medical professional for the purpose of treating gender dysphoria, which often includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries to remove healthy breast tissue, and surgeries to alter genitals.
“Gender affirming treatment can be prescribed to two-spirit, transgender, nonbinary, and other gender diverse individuals,” the bill states.
Testimony provided in opposition to the bill noted that the law fails to address parents or parental involvement, arguing that the law is simply an emotional response to helping children.
“Minors cannot consent to these kinds of medical procedures. The bill doesn’t say how long youth can be away from home, this should be considered child abuse,” opponents to the legislation wrote in a committee report on the legislation.
“A parents job is to protect their child, this bill strips parents of that ability,” they continued. “Gender is in your imagination. This bill legalizes the kidnapping of children, allows for the harboring of minors, and segregates us from the union.”
SB 5599 is the latest in a series of bills by Washington officials allowing children as young as 13 to make decisions about permanent medical procedures.
It also follows actions undertaken in red states to ban or severely restrict sex change treatments for individuals under the age of 18.
The list of states that now have laws in place banning or restricting sex change procedures for minors includes Indiana, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Dakota, Utah, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, and Arkansas.
A recent report found that more than 51 percent of parents who visited a gender clinic or specialist says they felt pressured to transition their child socially or medically, the Washington Times reported.
