The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing an Idaho law criminalizing gender-affirming medical care to take effect. House Bill 71, known as the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, says that any medical practitioner who gives a child under the age of 18 gender-affirming medical care could be charged with a felony and imprisoned for up to 10 years. The law specifically does not prohibit or criminalize the same surgeries and hormone treatments for cisgender patients.
While the lawsuit against the bill is pending, thousands of transgender youth have lost access to their care. Organizers who work with LGBTQIA+ youth say the bill’s message is harmful to the young people and will negatively impact their mental health.
“It’s made it just extra tough for some of our kids and families,” said Mindy OldenKamp, the director of operations of CLUTCH, a community group serving LGBTQIA+ youth in Nampa, Idaho. CLUTCH serves up to 10 transgender youth in a weekly support group for LGBTQIA+ youth. OldenKamp says some CLUTCH attendees who were pursuing physical transitions had their treatment suddenly stopped.
“They’re sort of left in this limbo,” OldenKamp said. “‘I was on this path to realizing my true self, and now I have to figure out something entirely different, or I have to stop it.’ And it just really, unfortunately, reinforces the idea that who they are is not meant to be who they are.”
OldenKamp said many parents in CLUTCH struggled with how to support their children after HB 71 went into effect, and some considered moving to another state.
One of those parents in Nampa is Vanessa Knapp, a genderqueer parent of an agender child, an eighth grader named Sam. Knapp is frustrated that the law is interfering in the decisions they are trying to make with Sam’s doctor about his options with hormone treatments.
“It’s been really, really difficult because our doctors are being influenced by the laws that recently passed,” Knapp said. “Our doctors obviously have years and years of profound training as well as a relationship with me and my kid, and we can’t make the best decision for him because certain things will come up that the doctor can’t offer anymore, and that’s been devastating and kind of intrusive.”
Knapp says the change in availability of treatment options has altered their original treatment plan. At their doctor’s suggestion, they are considering traveling to Seattle to access what they need, as one of their friends does.
The ACLU said the Supreme Court’s ruling “importantly does not touch upon the constitutionality of this law,” so it is not a judgment on whether access to gender-affirming health care is a constitutional right. The court says that can be left up to the lower court. In the meantime, only the two plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit challenging HB 71 are allowed to access gender-affirming care.
“While depriving thousands of Idaho families of lifesaving healthcare, the Supreme Court somehow said nothing about the constitutionality of these discriminatory bans,” said Shawn Meerkamper, the managing attorney at Transgender Law Center, in a statement to Prism. “Rather, the Court issued three diverging opinions on ancillary issues which telegraph some justices’ intent to hollow out checks on government power by requiring lower courts to leave unconstitutional laws in place.”
Gale Hernandez says that fellow volunteers with the Youth Alliance for Diversity, a group for LGBTQIA+ youth that meets weekly in Boise, will be shifting from providing resources like lists of doctors that can help with physical transitions to resources for coping with not being legally allowed to transition. Ultimately, he worries about how youth will deal with that grief and frustration, but also what this bill means for the future legal landscape.
“Is it just a stepping stone for banning more care in the future? What are their rights going to look like a few years down the line?” Hernandez said, mentioning a concern that not allowing state health insurance to pay for gender-affirming care could be next. “It’s another way of slowly basically putting a ban on being trans within the state.”
OldenKamp says HB 71 is not the only concern facing Idaho’s trans youth and that other legislation like restrictions on LGBTQIA+ books and school district policies that don’t allow discussion of gender and sexual identities in schools all weigh heavily on the youth who attend CLUTCH meetings.
“They just don’t always feel welcome by the greater community here or in Idaho as a whole,” she said. “So we hear a lot of discussion of, ‘Okay, well, when I’m done with high school, where can I go to college out of state? Where can I go where I can breathe a little easier? Where can I go where I can feel safe on a more regular basis?’”
Hernandez said he worries about the youth falling into despair, but that continuing on with hope is of the utmost importance right now.
“The queer community has been fighting for change over however many years, and anytime there’s a setback, we’re going to push back,” he said.
