The so-called "Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act" by Republican Representative Suzie Pollock, attempts to ban lifesaving healthcare for transgender youth by making it illegal for healthcare professionals to provide gender-affirming services, and uprooting financial barriers to make it inaccessible.

The bill attempts to manipulate the meaning of gender by defining it as “the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female.”

What are the psychological, behavioral, social and cultural aspects of being “male” or “female”?

Isn’t assigning these categories to a person’s gender, yet another form of gender essentialism that claims that our bodies influence the way we interact with the world, rather than the complex combinations of constructs, choices and circumstances?

This bill is not trying to ‘save’ any children. It is only adding to harmful narratives that perpetuate patriarchal binary constructs, by attacking trans and intersex youth.

While the bill prohibits lifesaving healthcare for trans youth, it simultaneously protects harmful, nonconsensual surgeries on intersex minors, and follows another common theme of erasure and misgendering in these legislative attacks: it doesn’t use the words “transgender” and “intersex” even once.

It attempts to claim that gender-affirming healthcare is ‘experimental’, but includes provisions that would let cisgender youth recieve the same care if they experience puberty too early.

The importance of gender-affirming care has been well documented: Trans folks who have access to gender-affirming hormone therapy in their teens, have better mental health than those who waited until adulthood or didn’t have access to treatment they needed, according to research led by the Stanford School of Medicine.

Gender-affirming care is also linked to long-term mental health benefits: a study of 2,500 trans folks found that over a 10-year period, the odds of getting mental health treatment decreased by 8 percent for every year since receiving gender-affirming surgery, according to American Journal of Psychiatry.

Trans people know who they are, and access to gender-affirming care is linked to being at lower risk of attempting suicide by nearly 40 percent in trans and nonbinary youth.

MO HB 2649 was read for the second time on 9th February, 2022.