Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey released language Thursday for an imminent emergency rule that aims to limit sex change operations in the state.
The rule identifies sex change operations as “experimental” and cites “significant side effects.” Missouri already prohibits health care professionals from performing sex change treatments on patients unless they have exhibited consistent gender dysphoria for 3 years, received at least 15 hours of therapy and resolved other potential mental health issues. (RELATED: School Vows To Investigate Trans Teacher Who Allegedly Threatened Violence After Keeping The Incident From Parents)
“As Attorney General, I will always fight to protect children because gender transition interventions are experimental,” Bailey said in a press release published Thursday. “My office has uncovered a clandestine network of clinics across the state who are harming children by ignoring the science. When even progressive countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the United Kingdom have all sharply curtailed these procedures, it’s time for the United States to course correct. My office is stepping up to protect children throughout the state while we investigate the allegations and how they are harming children.”
The regulation is effective April 27, 2023 and requires patients to be informed of several facts regarding sex change treatments. Doctors must inform patients that the FDA has not approved puberty blocker drugs or cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria, that the FDA has warned that puberty blockers can lead to brain swelling and blindness and that puberty suppression presents a risk of failure to attain normal peak bone density.
House Republicans passed a bill banning minors from transgender medical care. Meanwhile, AG Andrew Bailey put in an emergency rule with a series of new regulations on all transgender care statewide. https://t.co/S5NjH2fr6E
— KMOV (@KMOV) April 14, 2023
Bailey is investigating a St. Louis gender clinic over allegations that doctors there provided cross-sex drugs to children without reasonable psychiatric evaluations. Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the clinic, alleged in an article for the Free Press that doctors at Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital rushed children into irreversible sex change procedures.
A school staff member had contacted the gender clinic after a class of fifth graders all began identifying as transgender. The hospital had prescribed an “affirmative” method of treatment, arguing there was no harm done if the children later came to regret the procedure, according to emails.
Bailey was one of 17 attorneys general to voice support for Florida’s guidance regarding sex change treatments, in an amicus brief filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit between Florida and activist medical organizations, such as the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH). The brief highlighted the vast discrepancy between recommendations of major medical organizations in America and Europe’s increasingly skeptical approach towards transgender treatments for children.