North Carolina won’t pass bill to ban youth trans procedures

RALEIGH, N.C. — The office of North Carolina’s Republican Senate leader said on Tuesday the chamber won’t advance a controversial bill put forward this month by three GOP members that sought to limit medical treatments for transgender people under 21.

The measure also aimed to punish doctors who facilitate a patient’s desire to present themselves or appear in a way that is inconsistent with their biological sex.

“We do not see a pathway to Senate Bill 514 becoming law,” said Pat Ryan, a spokesman for GOP Senate leader Phil Berger, adding that “the bill will not be voted on the Senate floor.”

The measure prohibiting doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to minors and young adults faced an all but certain death if it made its way to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The proposal did not clear any committees, and the lack of support from Berger for advancing it is the nail in the coffin for a proposal that LGBTQ advocates consider harmful.

Equality North Carolina, the state’s top largest advocacy group for the transgender community, took to Twitter on Tuesday in response to the development, first reported by WFAE radio.

“This is welcome news, but the trauma and impact of these bills on the trans community over the past few weeks have been horrifying,” the group wrote. “Legislators who sponsored this bill, and the other two anti-trans bills at the NCGA, have blood on their hands.”

One of the bill’s authors, Republican state Sen. Ralph Hise, did not immediately respond to an email request for comment on Berger’s decision.

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