FRANKFORT, Ky. — Republican lawmakers in Kentucky on Wednesday swept aside the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill regulating some of the most personal aspects of life for transgender young people — from banning access to gender-affirming health care to restricting the bathrooms they can use.
The votes to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto were lopsided in both legislative chambers — where the GOP wields supermajorities — and came on the next-to-last day of this year’s legislative session.
As emotions surged, some people protesting the bill from the House gallery were removed and arrested after their chants drowned out the voices of lawmakers. The protesters, their hands bound, chanted “there’s more of us not here” as they waited to be taken away from the Capitol. Kentucky State Police didn’t immediately say how many were arrested or on what charges.
The debate is likely to spill over into this year’s gubernatorial campaign, with Beshear’s veto drawing GOP condemnation as he seeks reelection to a second term.
A legal fight also is brewing. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky reaffirmed that it intends to “take this fight to the courts” to try to preserve access to those health care options for young transgender people.
“While we lost the battle in the legislature, our defeat is temporary. We will not lose in court,” said Chris Hartman, executive director of the Fairness Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.
In praising the override, David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, said the bill puts “policy in alignment with the truth that every child is created as a male or female and deserves to be loved, treated with dignity and accepted for who they really are.”
Activists on both sides of the impassioned debate gathered at the statehouse to make competing appeals before lawmakers took up the transgender bill.
At a rally that drew hundreds of transgender-rights supporters outside Kentucky’s Capitol, trans teenager Sun Pacyga held up a sign summing up a grim review of the Republican legislation. The sign read: “Our blood is on your hands.”
“If it passes, the restricted access to gender-affirming health care, I think trans kids will die because of that,” the 17-year-old student said, expressing a persistent concern among the bill’s critics that the restrictions could lead to an increase in teen suicides.
The Senate voted 29-8 to override Beshear’s veto,. A short time later, the House completed the override on a vote of 76-23. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.
Bill supporters assembled to defend the measure, saying it protects trans children from undertaking gender-affirming treatments they might regret as adults. Research shows such regret is rare, however.
“We cannot allow people to continue down the path of fantasy, to where they’re going to end up 10, 20, 30 years down the road and find themselves miserable from decisions that they made when they were young,” said Republican Rep. Shane Baker at a rally.
The legislation in Kentucky is part of a national movement, with state lawmakers approving extensive measures that restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ people this year — from bills targeting trans athletes and drag performers to measures limiting gender-affirming care.
At least 10 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah and South Dakota. A proposed ban is pending before the Republican governor in West Virginia. Federal judges have blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas, and nearly two dozen states are considering bills this year to restrict or ban care.
The debate in the Kentucky Senate reflected the impassioned arguments put forth at the rival rallies.
“We are denying families, their physicians and their therapists the right to make medically informed decisions for their families,” Democratic Sen. Karen Berg said in opposing the bill.
Berg read what her son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, wrote in advocating for transgender rights shortly before his death late last year at age 24. The cause was suicide, his mother said.
Republican Sen. Robby Mills said he supported the bill because of his belief that “puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, when administered to youth under 18 for the purpose of altering their appearance, is dangerous for the health of that child.”
Transgender medical treatments have long been available in the United States and are endorsed by major medical associations.
Mills said another reason for his support was that “parents and students should have confidence that bathrooms in their school will only be used by the same biological sex.”
Doctors would have to set a timeline to “detransition” children already taking puberty blockers or undergoing hormone therapy. They could continue offering care as they taper a youngster’s treatments, if removing them from the treatment immediately could harm the child.
