West Virginia senators passed two bills addressing transgender issues.
The House of Delegates advanced yet another piece of legislation addressing transgender issues to the brink of passage.
In the Senate, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed legislation requiring teachers and school systems to notify parents if students disclose that they are questioning their gender identity. S.B. 154 would also prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity education in schools.
A short time later, senators passed legislation that further restricted treatment options for minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
“So it’s biological sex week here at the West Virginia state Senate,” said Senator Joey Garcia, D-Marion, who opposed all of the bills.
At the same time, the House of Delegates advanced SB456, legislation requested by the governor that could be passed as early as Friday, which defines “men” and “women.”
Senate Bill 154 prohibits public school employees from providing false information about a student’s gender identity and mandates that gender-affirming accommodations be reported to parents. It specifies penalties for violations ranging from written reprimands to termination.
The bill also prohibits teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, whether as part of a health education class or program or any other class or program.
Garcia it would erode trust between vulnerable students and teachers.
“There’s a just amount of fear that this bill just puts into place right now,” according to him.
He went on: “I see this as just another attack on really vulnerable people in our state, and students who might want to trust in a teacher with something that’s very hard or talk something through — again, if I was a lawyer, I would have a teacher at the very beginning of the year basically say, ‘Don’t tell me anything,’ because that’s how bad this bill is.”
The bill was sponsored by Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, a fourth grade teacher, who disagreed.
“This bill states that an employee has to make a conscious decision to socially transition a child without the parent’s consent,” said Grady, who represents Mason.
“If we make a conscious decision to do that, we are referring to them by a different name, a different gender, in a variety of ways, and recording information in our classroom — it is a conscious decision, not just hearsay or casual conversation.
Grady went on, “It’s unfortunate that we have to have a bill like this. It actually is. This happens in our schools.
“As a mother of three, I want to make decisions about my children’s mental health and medical needs. As a teacher in our public schools, I do not want to make such decisions for other parents. It is not my decision to make.”
Senate Bill 299 repeals the exceptions for prescribing gender-altering medication to minors with severe gender dysphoria.
This is the third time in three years that West Virginia lawmakers have addressed the issue, following the passage of a 2023 bill that prohibited gender surgery for minors while allowing treatment with medication under narrowly defined circumstances.
Senators have now passed a more restrictive bill.
“Adults can do whatever they want. Children cannot. “I urge passage,” said Senate Health Committee Chairwoman Laura Wakim Chapman, R-Ohio.
Garcia again spoke out against the bill, claiming it would undermine medical decisions and increase the risk of suicide.
He stated that the exceptions being eliminated are actually very narrow.
“There have to be two medical doctors or mental health professionals that make this diagnosis and that basically state that there is a risk of death by suicide or self harm,” he told me.
“Not only that, it’s not as simple as pushing this on a child or an adolescent and telling them to make this decision. This is a family decision, which is exactly how it should be between a family and a doctor or medical professional.”
Senator Chris Rose, the bill’s primary sponsor, spoke in support of it.
“We don’t trust children to drive until they’re 16. We don’t trust people to vote until they’re 18, buy a gun, or join the military. And the human brain, according to scientific data, does not fully develop until age 25,” said Rose, R-Monongalia.
“So, why are we allowing permanent harm to children at the ages of three, five, eight, and ten? “They’re not mature enough to understand that decision.”
Senator Tom Willis, R-Berkeley, addressed whether the two bills conflict: one requiring parents to be notified if a student takes steps to reflect a different gender identity at school, and the other stating that a minor cannot take puberty-blocking medication even if their parents agree.
“And so the bill that we talked about earlier really dealt with the sacred authority given by God to parents to raise their children right, and that that’s the general rule,” Willis informed us.
“There are some exceptions to that rule, as we all know, in cases of extreme abuse or neglect, but this bill that we’re talking about now is dealing with the fundamental right of a minor, it’s the protection of their personage.”
Willis went on to say, “So, while it may appear that the two are in conflict, they are not, and this bill is essentially fulfilling the basic role of government, which is to disincentivize evil. It is evil to fail to protect the identities of our minors in West Virginia. And so I believe they are logically consistent.”
