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A newly proposed bill in South Carolina aims to ban anyone under 18 from getting sex-change surgery and also make it illegal for doctors to prescribe hormones to children.

Republican state Rep. Stewart Jones said he filed the bill in response to the case of 7-year-old James Younger in Texas.

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TRIESTE, Italy, July 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The regional council of Friuli Venezia Giulia, an autonomous region in northeastern Italy, approved a motion calling on the national government to prohibit so-called puberty-blocking drugs used in so-called reassignment treatment for gender-confused children.

In a July 17 move by a center-right majority led by the League party, the Friuli Venezia Giulia regional council approved a motion calling on Italy’s national government to prohibit the prescription of drugs that prevent normal sexual development of adolescents.

The League’s leader is Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is one of the three members in Italy’s coalition government that includes Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Party (M5S) and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. The leftist parties in the regional council, including M5S, voted against the motion.

According to the council’s motion, “puberty is not a disease” and thus should not be prevented with surgery and medications that can produce irreversible effects. It also noted the long-term negative effects of drugs containing triptorelin.

“There is no evidence, in fact,” reads the motion, “on the effective full restoration of fertility in the case of withdrawal from treatment.” It cites data circulated by the American College of Pediatricians, which stated that as many as 98% of minors will outgrow their gender dysphoria (a feeling that one’s biological sex does not accord with one’s gender expression) after having passed through puberty naturally.

“We express opposition to the use of this drug,” said Mauro Bordin, according to VoceControCorrente. Bordin, who represents the League on the council and was a signatory of the motion, went on to say there are not enough clinical studies, “especially regarding the possible long-term negative effects and why blocking puberty pharmacologically could cause a misalignment in [adolescent] physical and cognitive development.” He said puberty-blockers could even compromise those parts of the brain that contribute to the definition of sexual identity, which also involve both environmental and educational factors.

Bordin said the motion is not an “ideological position, but a proposal of common sense in the exclusive interest of the health of children throughout Italy.” Critics have long warned against medical interventions for persons experiencing gender dysphoria. For example, Dr. Michelle Cretella of the American College of Pediatricians said in 2017, “Transgenderism is a psychological disorder, not a biological one.” She added, “Consequently, we expect transgenderism and its associated medical procedures to increase as society increasingly promotes this lifestyle.” Regarding a move by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons to coin the term “gender confirmation surgery,” she said, “Linguistic engineering precedes and accompanies social engineering.” Cretella went on to say, “Transgender activist physicians realize that sex reassignment surgery is a misnomer. In other words, surgery cannot change a person’s sex. By renaming sex reassignment surgery gender confirming surgery, they give the impression that they are affirming an inborn trait and further the innate immutable transgender myth.”

On the Italian Notizie Pro-Vita website, pro-life activist Dr. Silvana De Mari said, “The body is real. The mind must accept this reality and love it.” According to De Mari, “where there is no harmony between mind and body, the mind must be cured; the body must not be altered. The concept that sees the body and mind as disconnected,” said De Mari, is a pathological dissociative disorder.

The American College of Pediatricians recently warned the surgeon general of the United States against surgical and hormonal methods to obscure the sex of minors. ACP pointed to warnings issued by the U.K.’s Royal College of General Practitioners that the long-term effects of these techniques have not been subjected to sufficient research.

Triptorelin is marketed by the France-based Ipsen as Decapeptyl and as Diphereline and Gonapeptyl by Ferring Pharmaceuticals of Switzerland. In the United States, it is sold by Watson Pharmaceuticals as Trelstar. Triptorelin is a synthetic version of the natural hormone GnRH, which regulates the release of gonadotropins that are involved in the development of release of ova from human ovaries. Among the side effects, for women and girls, is ovary over-production; ovarian cysts; miscarriage; and heavy, prolonged menstruation. It is used for suppressing puberty.

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DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) – An Iowa judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two transgender Iowans and a gay rights advocacy group challenging the constitutionality of a law that exempts sex-reassignment operations from coverage under the state’s Medicaid program.

Mika Covington, Aiden DeLathower aka Aiden Vasquez and One Iowa, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ Iowans, argued in their May 31 complaint that the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage of sex-reassignment surgery violates their equal protection rights under the Iowa Constitution by “intentionally singling out transgender Iowans as a class for discrimination in public accommodations through the provision of publicly funded healthcare under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.”

Polk County District Judge David Porter dismissed the lawsuit on Thursday, finding the issues raised by the plaintiffs are not ready for judicial review.

Covington and Vasquez had not yet sought or been denied Medicaid coverage, so they must first appeal the state’s Medicaid rules at the administrative level before challenging them in court, he wrote in a 13-page order.

The complaint named as defendants Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Department of Human Services, or DHS. A spokesman for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The plaintiffs were represented by Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, and John Knight of the ACLU Foundation LGBT & HIV Project.

A spokesperson for the ACLU-Iowa said the organization will now seek an emergency temporary injunction from the Iowa Supreme Court in response to Judge Porter’s dismissal of the suit.

The ACLU also released a statement Friday from Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel, executive director of One Iowa:  “No one, including transgender Iowans, should be denied the medical care they need. Being denied this medically necessary care puts the health and lives of transgender Iowans who rely on Medicaid at risk, including increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts for transgender individuals who can’t access the care their doctors prescribe. That’s why we’re appealing this decision.”

This challenge to the constitutionality of Iowa’s Medicaid rules pertaining to sex-change surgeries is the second to work its way through Iowa’s courts. In March, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the DHS regulation barring Medicaid coverage of sex-change operations violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act. But the court did not reach the constitutional question of equal-protection violations.

The Iowa General Assembly then amended the Civil Rights Act to say that the act “shall not require any state or local government unit or tax-supported district to provide for sex reassignment surgery or any other cosmetic, reconstructive, or plastic surgery procedure related to transsexualism, hermaphroditism, gender identity disorder, or body dysmorphic disorder.”

In Thursday’s ruling, Judge Porter said the Civil Rights Act amendment does not “prevent the Iowa Medicaid program from covering sex reassignment surgery or any other surgical procedure, if the program so chooses.”

Covington and Vasquez must therefore begin by appealing to the DHS, which will give the state the opportunity to reconsider whether it will provide Medicaid coverage for sex-reassignment operations in the light of new scientific evidence since the original rules were written a quarter century ago.

“Unquestionably, petitioners make compelling arguments concerning the science and treatment related to gender dysphoria,” Porter wrote. “It is precisely because those arguments are compelling and because DHS has not reviewed or studied the language of the regulation since its original adoption in 1995 that the statute allows for interested persons, such as the petitioners here, to request the adoption, amendment, or repeal of a rule.”

That gives the administrative agency “a full opportunity to amend or repeal its rules related to treatment for gender dysphoria before those issues are presented to the district court,” he wrote.

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