Wyoming joins the long list of states, including Texas, Utah, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and North Dakota, among others, that have banned gender transition surgeries and treatments for minors. Governor Mark Gordon, a Republican, signed bill SF0099 to ban these types of surgical procedures and medication for children.
"I signed SF99 because I support the protections this bill includes for children, however it is my belief that the government is straying into the personal affairs of families. ... Our legislature needs to sort out its intentions with regard to parental rights. While it inserts governmental prerogative in some places, it affirms parental rights in others," Gordon wrote in a statement after the signing.
The procedures that are prohibited thanks to the approval of this law include anything that "sterilizes the child, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, penectomy, phalloplasty and vaginoplasty." Medications such as puberty blockers and those that "induce transient or permanent infertility" are also illegal.
Abortion regulation
Although, for now, the voluntary termination of pregnancy is legal in Wyoming, the governor vetoed an abortion regulation bill which would have "properly regulated surgical abortion clinics" in the state.
If it goes ahead, medical facilities dedicated to surgical abortions would have to have an "ambulatory surgical center" license.
"With the judge certifying these cases to the Wyoming Supreme Court, the state is closer than ever to a decision on the constitutionality of abortion in Wyoming. It is my opinion that HB148, as amended, had the potential to further delay the resolution of this critical issue for the unborn. The potential of starting over on a new course of legal arguments would in my mind be derelict, and would have only sacrificed additional unborn lives in Wyoming," Gordon said in the statement.
