CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — West Virginia made national headlines Friday after a bill that would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming surgery to minors advanced in the House of Delegates.
The bill in question is House Bill 2007, and it would add a new section to the Code of West Virginia state code that would prohibit doctors from performing certain surgeries on a person younger than 18 for the purpose of gender transition.
Those surgeries, according to the latest version of the bill available, include:
- Penectomy (surgery to remove part or all of the penis), orchiectomy (a surgical procedure to remove one or both testicles), vaginoplasty (penile inversion), clitoroplasty, or vulvoplasty for biologically males younger than 18.
- Hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) or ovariectomy (surgical removal of the ovaries) for biologically female patients younger than 18.
- Metoidioplasty or Phalloplasty (surgical creation of a phallus using other tissues), vaginectomy (a surgical procedure to remove all or part of the vagina), scrotoplasty implantation of erection or testicular prostheses for biologically female patients younger than 18.
- Augmentation mammoplasty (breast implants) for biologically male patients younger than 18 and subcutaneous mastectomy (surgical procedure of removing all of the breast tissue) for female patients younger than 18.
The bill would allow the following procedures in the following circumstances:
- Services to an individual born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including “being born with forty-six xx chromosomes with virilization or forty-six xy chromosomes with undervirilization or having both ovarian and testicular tissue.”
- Services for other patients without “normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production or sex steroid hormone action.”
- Treatment for infections, injuries, diseases or disorders “caused by or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures whether or not the gender transition procedure was performed in accordance with state and federal law.”
- Any procedure undertaken because the individual suffers from a physical disorder, injury, or physical illness that would place the person in imminent danger, death or impairment of a major bodily function unless surgery is performed.
The bill’s lead sponsor was Geoff Foster (R, Putnam) and its other sponsors include Geno Chiarelli (R, Monongalia), Chuck Horst (R, Berkeley), Wayne Clark (R, Jefferson), Mike Devault (R, Marion), Elias Coop-Gonzalez (R, Pendleton, Randolph), Eric Brooks (R, Fayette, Raleigh), Todd Kirby (R, Raleigh), Jordan Maynor (R, Mercer, Raleigh, Summers), David Adkins (R, Lincoln), Bryan Ward (R, Hardy, Pendleton).
Those interested can follow the bill’s progress online here.
