Worthy Christian News > US News > South Dakota bans sex-change drugs and surgeries for minors

South Dakota bans sex-change drugs and surgeries for minors

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – South Dakota on Monday passed legislation that will ban sex-change surgeries and drug treatments for minors starting on July 1, the Washington Times reports.

Passed overwhelmingly by South Dakota’s Republican-controlled House and Senate, the Help Not Harm Act, House Bill 1080 prohibits the prescription of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, sterilizations, and surgical procedures “to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor’s perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” the Times reports. The law gives physicians until December 31 to wean off minors who have already begun treatments.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem signed the Help Not Harm Act into law on Monday, making South Dakota the seventh state to ban sex-change treatments for children.

Advocating for the necessity of the legislation, Autumn Leva, Family Policy Alliance senior vice president of strategy, said in a statement that gender transition treatments cause serious harm to minors. “They often leave young people sterile, with a variety of irreversible maladies and physical changes, and the deep pain of regret,” Leva said. “All this can happen before a child is even old enough to buy cough syrup over the counter.”

Angered at the prospect of this legislation being passed, transgender activists held protests on Saturday in Sioux Falls, Vermillion, Brookings and Rapid City, the Times reports.