Vicky Arias, FISM News
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Newly signed legislation in California championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom strips parents of their rights and decision-making responsibilities if their child comes to the state in search of transgender treatment or surgery.
The new law, instead, effectively places irreversible medical decisions into the hands of minors and the California government. Known as SB 107, the legislation grants the state the official power to make legal decisions for minors who come to the state seeking transgender surgeries and drugs, despite their parents’ objections.
On September 29, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 107 into law, giving the state “temporary emergency jurisdiction if…it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child…because the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.”
For context, similar legislation is used in emergency situations when children have been abused or neglected. In such cases, the state may assume legal responsibility for the child.
Some conservative US states, including Texas and Alabama, have rules that run counter to California’s progressive legislation, penalizing healthcare providers and parents who allow children to receive transgender drugs and surgeries. Many health care professionals and child advocates have said these bills are necessary because children are still formulating decision-making skills well into their twenties. Charges can be brought against healthcare providers or parents in these states if they help facilitate life-altering treatments in minors.
SB 107 would act as a sanctuary for children who cannot get transgender surgeries in their home states.
Part of the new law “would prohibit law enforcement agencies from knowingly making or participating in the arrest or extradition of an individual pursuant to an out-of-state arrest warrant based on another state’s law against…allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care.”
However, per the United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2 “A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.”
The Constitution explicitly says that states must comply with extradition laws. California’s new bill, however, expressly disobeys this law.
Additionally, studies have found that the majority of children who are confused about their gender will go on to identify with the gender in which they were born. According to a 2008 study, called Gender Identity Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence, “as children with GID [gender identity disorders] only rarely go on to have permanent transsexualism, irreversible physical interventions are clearly not indicated until after the individual’s psychosexual development is complete.”
Parental rights groups have expressed outrage over California’s new law.
A coalition of 51 organizations came together and wrote a letter to Gov. Newsom, stating that “SB 107 blatantly violates the fundamental right of every parent in every state to direct the upbringing and care of their child. This legislation allows the ‘taking of a child’ to California (without parental knowledge or consent) to obtain gender transition procedures – including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries – and impermissibly gives California courts the power to strip custody from lawful and well-intentioned parents (regardless of where they live) who may have legitimate concerns for their child’s mental and physical health.”