Deranged South Dakota Bill Targeting Trans Teens Has Been Defeated
Politics

A South Dakota bill that would have prohibited doctors, nurses, and medical assistants from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors has been defeated. In a 5-2 decision, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee deferred action on the bill, effectively killing the radical bill. Now, the decision to use hormone treatments, puberty blockers and the like will remain at the discretion of trans minors and their families, not the state.
The bill, HB 1057, was first introduced by state Republican lawmakers on January 15 and passed the state House later that month in a 46-23 vote, alarmist messaging leading the way. Fred Deutsch, the legislator pushing the bill, compared gender-affirming treatments to Nazi medical experiments, calling them a “crime against humanity.” In an interview with the notoriously anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, Deutsch said, “You know, I’m the son of a Holocaust survivor. I’ve had family members killed in Auschwitz. And I’ve seen the pictures of the bizarre medical experiments. I don’t want that to happen to our kids. And that’s what’s going on right now.”