United States: Kentucky and West Virginia have become the latest US states to advance laws limiting access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.

With these new laws, at least 11 states have imposed restrictions on treatments that leading medical groups like the American Academy of Paediatrics state are necessary and even life-saving for transgender young people.

The proponents of the restrictions argue that people under the age of 18 are too young to undergo gender-affirming treatments, which can range from temporary, reversible measures like puberty blockers, which pause sexual development, to hormone treatment and surgery.

The laws were introduced in Kentucky when a heavily Republican legislature used its supermajority to override an earlier veto from Democratic Governor Andy Beshear.

Following a vote of 29 to 8 in the state Senate, Kentucky’s House of Representatives passed the law along party lines, 76 to 23. The law not only restricts gender-affirming healthcare but also requires doctors to stop services for patients already undergoing treatment.

If a sudden end to care will harm the patient, the law requires doctors to establish a timeline to end the treatment. These restrictions are set to take effect in three months.

According to Kentucky’s bill, schools will be barred from holding discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity, while educational districts must craft policies to ensure students use toilets corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates.

“We are denying families, their physicians and their therapists the right to make medically-informed decisions for their families,” Mr. Karen Berg, a Democratic state Senator, commented in opposition to the bill.

The laws in both Kentucky and West Virginia join a wave of Republican legislation across the country that critics denounce as an attack on LGBTQ+ rights.

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