Republican Rep. Sandy Salmon’s bill “Gender and Sexual Discordance – Minors” attempts to sytemically erase transgender youth in Iowa.

It protects the pseudo-scientific act of so-called ‘conversion’ therapy; criminalizes lifesaving gender-affirming care; makes it illegal for schools to protect a trans child from potentially non-supportive parents; and simultaneously protects so-called ‘whistelblowers’ who report supportive adults attempting to protect children from this anti-trans discriminatory bill.

There are as many ways to be trans as there are trans people, and no piece of legislation has the right to make broad generalizations that erase the right to self-determination.

This bill puts transition into a medicalized box by attempting to reduce all people to their bodies with its fear-mongering about infertility and its invasive discussion on sexuality. It dismisses transness by suggesting a ‘wait and see approach’ that it claims will lead the child to ‘outgrow’ gender dysphoria.

It refers to medically necessary gender-affirming support as an ‘aggressive push’ by doctors, and calls lifesaving care like puberty blockers and hormones ‘experimental’ while simultaneously allowing provisions for it to be used for cisgender children who experience puberty too early or quickly.

Trans youth know who they are, and the legislation’s baseless claims are putting lives at risk: More than half of trans children were at risk of suicide this past year, and access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in transgender youth, Trevor Project reports.

Under this bill, doctors could be imposed with penalties of up to one thousand dollars for each gender-affirming service they provide, and could have their license revoked.

The bill also protects pseudo-scientific act of ‘conversion’ therapy, which is condemned as dangerous by numerous medical groups for its harmful attempt to ‘change’ a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

LGBTQ youth subjected to ‘conversion therapy’ are twice as likely to be at risk of suicide compared to those who aren’t, and trans youth are twice as likely to be subjected to the harmful practice, Trevor Project reports.

IA HF 193 was introduced and referred to committee on 20th Jan, 2022.