The measure would remove the sunset from Missouri’s 2023 restrictions, permanently barring doctors from providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors
By: Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
The Missouri House passed legislation Thursday that would permanently bar doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transgender minors, sending the bill to the Senate for approval.
Lawmakers voted along party lines with 102 Republicans in favor and 40 Democrats voting against the bill. Democratic state Reps. Chanel Mosley from Black Jack and Stephanie Boykin of Florissant voted “present.”
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Melissa Schmidt, a Republican from Eldridge, said during debate on Monday that she supports a “watchful waiting” approach to gender dysphoria in adolescents, advocating for counseling over medical intervention.
“Children become confused in many areas of their lives,” she said. “They have many questions throughout their years of development, and we have a responsibility to speak the truth.”
Since passing the state’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors in 2023, Missouri lawmakers have filed bills every year seeking to remove the law’s expiration date. Last year, the proposal was approved at the committee level and rolled into a 108-page Senate bill that sought to modify the sunsets of a variety of laws. The legislation ultimately stalled in the House.
House Republicans echoed a desire to “protect children,” citing recent statements by medical groups recommending against gender-affirming surgeries for youth.
The bill wouldn’t change the state’s ban on gender affirming surgeries for those under 18, which was enacted without a sunset in 2023. It would only impact access to cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers, which Democrats argued should not be regulated by the state’s legislature.
“Why are we so focused on inserting ourselves in the living rooms of Missourians all across the state,” said state Rep. Marty Joe Murrary, a St. Louis Democrat. “When a child and a parent, they have a right to make a decision about the health care decisions for people in their household. Why are we better able to dictate that than themselves and their medical professional?”
State Rep. Jeff Hales, a Democrat from University City, called the legislation an “overreach” Thursday.
“By passing this, we are telling parents that the state knows better than they do on how to care for their own flesh and blood,” he said. “We are telling doctors that their years of medical expertise are secondary to our desires to scapegoat and target a vulnerable minority.”
When the law passed in 2023, three Republicans voted against the restrictions, including House Speaker Jon Patterson, a doctor from Lee’s Summit.
He was not in the chamber for the bill’s debate Monday, pointed out Democratic state Rep. Keri Ingle who is also from Lee’s Summit and is expected to run against Patterson for an open seat in the Missouri Senate, should both win their party’s nomination
“He voted no on this bill, because he at that time believed that it wasn’t in the state’s best interest to stop medical care,” she said.
Thursday, as the bill got its final stamp of approval in the House, Patterson voted in favor of removing the sunset.
The country’s largest medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association, continue to support the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for those under 18 to medically transition.
The bill now heads to the Senate.