By Jo Yurcaba - NBC News
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday vetoed a bill that would have made the state the first to ban doctors from performing gender transition surgeries or offering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors.
Hutchinson called the bill
"a major government overreach
," and that the law would create "new standards of legislative interference with doctors and parents while dealing with some of the most complex and sensitive issues involving young people." .
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The Republican Party-controlled Arkansas Senate passed the bill last week, and Hutchinson said he expects the General Assembly "likely" to override his veto with a simple majority.
"I am hopeful that my action will get conservative Republican lawmakers to rethink the issue
and hopefully come up with a more moderate approach that allows for a study of science and ethics before acting," Hutchinson said.
More than three dozen other states are considering bills that target transgender minors, either prohibiting them from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity or restricting access to health care for gender changers.
Hutchinson and the governors of two other states, Mississippi and Tennessee, have enacted bans on transgender athletes.
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Hutchinson said during the news conference that major Arkansas medical associations opposed the bill to restrict gender-affirming care, and that denying care to transgender youth may "lead to significant harm to youth by biases. suicide, social isolation and increased drug use. "
The governor said that although the population of transgender minors in the state is a minority, "they deserve the guiding hand of their parents and the health professionals that their family has chosen."
He also added that gender confirmation surgery is not performed on people under the age of 18 in Arkansas.
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Supporters of the bill said they wanted to "protect" young people from "experimental" medical care, although medical professionals have noted that puberty blockers have long been used to treat precocious puberty in cisgender youth. .
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Activists claimed that Hutchinson's veto is a victory for transgender and non-binary youth in Arkansas.
"Thank you to Governor Hutchinson for doing the right thing in rejecting this dangerous bill - the Arkansas State Legislature must follow suit in recognizing the mental health risks of this bill and letting the veto stand," he noted Sam Brinton, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, and is vice president of defense and government affairs for The Trevor Project, which works to prevent teen suicide.
Brinton said they hope the governor's action "sends a message to other lawmakers across the country who are considering similar bans on gender transition healthcare, that it would only work to endanger the lives of transgender youth."
"While they're at it, we also urge Arkansas to reconsider its misguided ban on transgender student-athletes," Brinton added.
Hutchinson argued that the two questions he sees as "separate issues."
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The Alabama Senate passed a similar restriction on gender transition health care, though Chase Strangio, deputy director of transgender justice for the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) LGBT and HIV Project, said it's more. extreme than the Arkansas bill, because it includes felony penalties for medical professionals who provide care.
Strangio said the ACLU will sue any state that passes bans or restrictions on transgender athletes on gender transition health care, though he said he is concerned the litigation will end in the Supreme Court.
"People rely too much on judicial systems to prevent these things from going into effect
, and I think we can really be prepared for a rude awakening when we begin to get to know this new Supreme Court more," Strangio opined about the judicial body, which now it has a conservative majority with Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.