ATLANTA — Legislation regulating the prescription of puberty blockers for transgender minors and banning use of the State Health Benefits Plan for gender-affirming care were approved by House panels this week.

Both bills were approved on party-line votes, with Republicans supporting the measures, putting them in position to reach the floor for a full House vote before the legislative session ends April 4.

The bill regulating puberty blocking medications was pared down from an earlier version. It would allow minors to be prescribed the treatment only after being separately diagnosed with gender dysphoria by two mental health professionals and after a parent or guardian has signed a written consent form. Only a pediatrician who specializes in endocrinology or adolescent medicine will be allowed to prescribe the medication.

House Public and Community Health Chairwoman Sharon Cooper, a Marietta Republican, offered the changes to Senate Bill 30, which originally would have banned the prescription of puberty blockers for all minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

“I think that this is a true compromise,” Cooper said. “This allows for puberty blockers, but it makes them really hard to get.”

She called pediatric endocrinologists and physicians who specialize in adolescent medicine “rare birds.”

“A parent is going to have to really want and understand and believe their child has this dysphoria, because a lot of them are probably going to have to drive 100 (to) 150 miles to get to that type of doctor,” Cooper said.

Doctors would have to submit annual reports to the Georgia Composite Medical Board and the minor would be required to undergo quarterly psychological counseling as long as they’re taking the medicine.

Two years ago, the Georgia General Assembly banned the prescription of hormone replacement therapies and performance of surgeries on transgender minors. But lawmakers allowed the continued prescription of puberty blockers to transgender minors and allowed minors who were receiving hormone replacement therapies before the law’s July 1, 2023, effective date to continue to use them.

At the time, Senate Health and Human Services Chairman Ben Watson successfully pushed to allow minors who were taking hormone treatment prior to the 2023 law’s effect to continue. He also successfully pushed to remove the ban on puberty blockers from the 2023 legislation.

This year, Watson, a physician from Moultrie, proposed SB 30 to ban puberty blockers and hormone therapies for all transgender minors, even if they were taking the hormones before July 1, 2023.

Watson said he disagrees with allowing minors to be prescribed puberty blockers at all, but still wanted the bill to move forward.

“I think that’s the wrong thing to do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, I’m trying to be the bigger person here and allow this bill to move (forward in the legislative process). So I will not try to delay it, and I will not suggest any changes, unless we want to go back to the original bill.”

State Rep. Spencer Frye, a Democrat from Athens, decried the focus being placed on transgender people by Republican lawmakers this year.

“I want to point out that this is a waste of our time to be up here discussing something that affects so small of a population,” he said of the estimated .5% of Georgians who identify as transgender. “Look at all the people in this room taking time to be here and all the legislators up here that could be working on problems for all 11 million Georgians that need to be solved.”

The House Health Committee passed Senate Bill 39, which would prevent the state’s health insurance program and Medicaid from covering surgeries on transgender patients and hormone therapy that is often prescribed to those diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the medical diagnosis given to most transgender people. It is the first time the state has tried to limit treatment for transgender adults.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery, a Vidalia Republican who sponsored the legislation, said his bill aims to ensure that state money is not being used to offer care that does not align with the Republican-controlled Legislature’s stance on transgender people.

Over the past decade, transgender people have successfully sued various state agencies — such as the departments of education and corrections — to receive different types of gender-affirming care that had been denied.

Policies at state agencies had blocked the State Health Benefit Plan from covering care such as hormone therapy or surgery. As part of settlement agreements between the transgender plaintiffs and state, agencies agreed to cover gender-affirming care, as well as compensate the plaintiffs in those challenges.

Tillery stressed the bill would not ban gender-affirming care, but it would mean that those on the State Health Benefit Plan — and those who receive Medicaid — would have to seek private health insurance coverage or pay out of pocket for treatment.

Lawmakers this year have passed a bill requiring transgender girls and women to play sports according to the sex listed in their birth certificate and another bill that would ban state funds from being used to pay for gender-affirming care in prisons.

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