She's running for U.S. Senate and is trying to ban gender-affirming care for minors in RI

PROVIDENCE – For Republican state Rep. Patricia Morgan, gender-affirming surgery or treatment for minors, and the participation of transgender athletes in school sports, are issues on which to mount a U.S. Senate campaign.

In an email recently sent by her campaign, Morgan, R-West Warwick, flagged a hearing taking place Tuesday on her legislation to ban – and prohibit the use of public funds for – "gender reassignment" treatments for minors. It would also require minors currently taking "puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones" to stop doing so by Jan. 1, 2025.

Morgan, who hopes to replace incumbent U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, wrote in her email: "Activist educators and health care workers, driven more by ideology than by genuine concern for well-being, are targeting our children."

Rather than offering "proven therapeutic interventions" to children struggling with mental health, their self-image and their family situations, Morgan argues that "ideologues offer a dangerous and deceitful promise: that all their problems can simply be medicated or surgically cut away."

What do the bills do?

The West Warwick legislator and two of her House Republican colleagues – Reps. Brian Rea and Robert Quattrocchi – have dubbed their bill, H7884, the "Rhode Island's Children Deserve Help Not Harm Act." It's one of two gender-related bills they sponsor that will be considered by House committees this week.

The first bill:

• Bans any "gender-transition procedures" and hormone therapies on those under the age of 18.

• Opens any doctor who performs such procedures to civil suits and discipline by the state's medical licensing board.

The second bill, called the "The Fairness in Women's Sports Act" (H7727), will be heard Wednesday in the House Education Committee and would:

• Ban "students of the male sex" from women's or girls' sports.

• In the event of a dispute, require a doctor's note attesting to the student's sex based on the "student's internal and external reproductive anatomy," hormone levels and genetic makeup.

Why is Morgan sponsoring the bills?

First up in the House on Tuesday is a hearing by the House Health & Human Services Committee on the gender-transition bill that has already drawn a heavy stream of comments for and against the legislation.

In an interview Tuesday, Morgan told The Journal that about two dozen parents have told her they believe their children – or others they've heard about – are being "manipulated" into seeking gender-affirming treatments.

She cited a pending malpractice lawsuit against the Thundermist Health Clinic by a former patient who alleges she was in "unstable psychiatric condition," with eight distinct personalities, when she sought and received "transgender affirming treatment" from agenda-pushing doctors at the clinic.

But despite sending an email blast from her campaign account on the bills, Morgan says the issue is not central to her platform.

"No, it's not going to be the thing that I base my run for the U.S. Senate on," Morgan said. "But I do still think that it's a very important issue that we must tackle to protect children."

"Parents are being manipulated, emotionally blackmailed into agreeing to give their children puberty-blockers by this statement: 'Do you want a dead child or a child with a different gender?'" she continued.

More: State Republican lawmaker Patricia Morgan is quietly running for the U.S. Senate

Testimony in favor of the bill

• "Please pass this bill," wrote David and Theresa Casale of Lincoln. "What is being done to this generation of children is a disgrace. Evil is only way to describe it."

• "This bill is not anti-trans; it's pro-child. It's about recognizing that children cannot, and do not, have the capacity to give informed consent to life-altering medical procedures. It's about protecting them until they are of an age where they can make these decisions with a full understanding of the consequences," wrote Kimberly Trow of Coventry.

• "Children do not have the mental capacity, especially when they are in crisis, depressed, suicidal or just angry at their parents or the world, to make the kind of alterations to their bodies that this bill would prevent. Allow them to make these crucial decisions as adults," echoed Laura Rom of Charlestown.

Testimony against the bill

Most, though not all, who opposed the bill acknowledged a personal connection to the population it would affect.

• "My name is Eliza and I'm a cisgender, queer freshman in high school with many trans and genderqueer friends. Do not let H7884 pass. Many people close to me have not been able to access gender-affirming care, and for those who have had access to it, it has improved their mental health tremendously. If anything, we need more access to this life-saving care. Yes, life-saving. I have been extremely close to losing multiple transgender friends to suicide after their depression and dysphoria fed off each other," the teen wrote.

• Writing as the "proud parent of a bright and beautiful transgender teen, Amber Ward, of Bristol, urged "swift and decisive action" to dispense with this "hateful and deeply harmful anti-transgender legislation." "I appeal to your decency and your humanity," she wrote the legislators. "It is well and credibly documented that anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies adversely impact the mental health of youth."

• And finally, Alice Kasumi Ellis, of Woonsocket, wrote as "someone who is a transgender woman and was prescribed Estradiol(Estrogen) and Spironolactone, an anti-androgen, at the age of 15 in conjunction with common medical practices for the treatment of Gender Dysphoria." "In fact I would most likely not be alive today without receiving such treatment at that time in my life," she wrote. "What contributes to struggles with my mental health are not [Hormone Replacement Therapy] or Puberty Blockers, but the exact societal stigma and bigoted language in this bill and others of its ilk that makes me feel alienated from society and afraid for my safety due to the constant harassment and violence I have personally faced, along with that of my community."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Bill filed in RI House would ban gender-affirming treatment for minors