Nevada moves safe-haven law for sexual-reassignment pediatric surgeons

The Senate of Nevada is actively considering a bill to protect surgeons who surgically reassign the gender of minors.

The Nevada bill

Senate Bill 302, introduced March 16, 2023, would have the following force and effect:

1. No physician or surgeon, having prescribed puberty blockers or other hormones to a minor, or performed sexual reassignment surgery on a minor, would face discipline from the Board of Medical Examiners or other such Board solely for that, or in consequence to having lost his license or faced other discipline from the District of Columbia or another State.
2. The Governor may not surrender, or issue an arrest warrant for, any physician or surgeon wanted in another State for performing such “gender affirming services” in violation of any criminal statute in that State.

SB 302 first came before the Commerce and Labor Committee on April 5, 2023. The Committee took no action then, but took the bill up again on April 13. Then the Committee amended the bill and reported it favorably to the full Senate.

Current law in States other than Nevada

On April 10, ABC News produced a map of all States, showing current laws on sexual reassignment of minors. These States have total bans on such procedures: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah. Georgia has what ABC considers a partial ban: on sexual-reassignment surgery but not puberty blockers. (Judges in Alabama and Arkansas have enjoined the bans in those States.)

Other States are considering such bans: Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. No other State has even considered such a ban. Minnesota has a “safe haven” law similar to Nevada’s SB 302. (Perhaps from sloppy editing, ABC’s report lists Idaho as a total ban State while its map shows it as “considering.”)

In the Nevada committee debate, Democrats held that such decisions are private, even if the child is under age. Republican tales of “transition remorse” fell on deaf ears.

Washington State passed an arguably worse law. It allows school faculty and administration, and shelter directors, to hide a child who demands (or is persuaded to “demand”) sexual reassignment from his or her parents who refuse to consent to the same.

State of the medical debate

The medical debate is confused. On the one hand, a brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty-two. On the other hand, surgeons insist that sexual reassignment, even fertile reassignment, might be possible if only doctors could start early enough. This Brave search result links to several articles asserting that fertility even in the “reassigned” gender might someday be possible.

About the image

This snapshot of the grave of Mary Shelley, authoress of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is by Jim Linwood. He has released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.