(UPDATE: The majority-Republican Legislature on Tuesday -04-06-21 voted to override Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto. )
CITES GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE- Arkansas’ governor has vetoed legislation that would have made the state the first to ban gender confirming treatments for transgender youth. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday rejected the measure that would have prohibited doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment or surgery to minors, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment.
" . . . we are creating new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and most sensitive matters involving young people," Asa Hutchinson, Governor of Arkansas.
"If Housebill 1570 becomes law then we are creating new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and most sensitive matters involving young people," Hutchinson explained.
Hutchinson’s move followed pleas from pediatricians, social workers and the parents of trans youth. Proponents of the bill say it’s all about protecting vulnerable children from surgical and chemical sex-change procedures who do not have a medically verifiable sex development disorder. Hutchinson’s vetoe could be overturned by a simple legislative majority.
