The Louisiana State Senate passed a bill Monday that would ban puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgeries, such as double mastectomies and castrations, for minors.
HB 648, which passed by a vote of 29-10, was resurrected in the state senate after State Senator Fred Mills (R-Acadiana), a former Democrat and a pharmacy owner backed by the pharmaceutical industry, killed the measure in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.
Mills also voted against the bill in the full state senate after Republicans filed a motion to recommit to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it was moved along and ultimately voted upon.
🚨VICTORY: On a 29-10 vote, the Louisiana Senate has voted in favor of HB648, to ban child sex changes.
It now heads to Gov. John Bel Edwards' desk.
Republican State Sen. Fred Mills, who blocked the bill in committee two weeks ago, was the only R to vote no.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 5, 2023
The bill will return to the state house, where it is expected to pass with the approval of some minor amendments, and then head to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards (D).
According to a report at the Associated Press (AP), Edwards “opposes” the legislation and has not indicated whether he would veto it.
“If he does, lawmakers could convene a veto session to try to override his decision,” the report said. “Last session, Edwards chose not to block a law banning transgender athletes from participating in women and girls sports competitions in Louisiana, although he successfully vetoed a similar measure the year before.”
After Mills succeeded at killing the bill in committee, the State Freedom Caucus Network’s Greg Price posted to Twitter a video of a commercial Mills reportedly made for his pharmacy in which he dressed in drag.
In other news, I have discovered that Louisiana Republican Senator Fred Mills who just singlehandedly killed a bill to ban transing children also used to dress in drag for commercials for his pharmacy. pic.twitter.com/E47Ezcc4PP
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 24, 2023
According to AP, Mills, who is term-limited, told fellow lawmakers on the state senate floor Monday that, despite the criticism he has received for his votes against the measure to protect children from transgender drugs and surgeries, he was proud of his vote, referring to it as a “defining moment” in his legislative career.
“I want to tell you, this is probably one of the biggest blessings in my life, this controversy,” Mills said. “I’ve been attacked nationwide, but I don’t hate those people… they’re passionate about their issue.”
“The people that contacted me throughout the United States … thanking me that maybe we prevented a suicide (with the committee vote), I will let you all know I love you, and I hope things work out for you,” he added, pushing the now debunked narrative of LGBTQ activists that claims so-called “gender-affirming” care for minors saves them from suicide.
In a study published in March 2022 in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, Dr. Stephen B. Levine, of the Department of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University and his colleagues noted the “unprecedented rise in the numbers of children and adolescents seeking gender transition” in under a decade.
In “Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults,” Levine et al found the transgender industry’s “transition or die” youth suicide narrative to be “factually inaccurate and ethically fraught.”
“The ‘transition or die’ narrative regards suicidal risk in trans-identified youth as a different phenomenon than suicidal risk among other youth,” Levine and his colleagues noted. “Making them an exception falsely promises the parents that immediate transition will remove the risk of suicidal self-harm.”
Levine et al. continued:
Disseminating such alarmist messages hurts the majority of trans-identified youth who are not at risk for suicide. It also hurts the minority who are at risk, and who, as a result of such misinformation, may forgo evidence-based suicide prevention interventions in the false hopes that transition will prevent suicide.
“Until recently, little was known about the actual rate of suicide of trans-identified youth,” Levine asserted. “However, a recent analysis of data from the biggest pediatric gender clinic in the world, the UK’s Tavistock, found the rate of completed youth suicides to be 0.03% over a 10-year period, which translates into the annual rate of 13 per 100,000 (Biggs, 2022). While this rate is significantly elevated compared to the general population of teens, it is far from the epidemic of trans suicides portrayed by the media.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
