West Virginia lawmakers, on Feb. 23, 2024, passed out of the House Health and Human Resources Committee House Bill 5297 to the full chamber. The bill would ban interventions like hormone therapy and puberty blockers from at-risk transgender youth.
Some Republican lawmakers in West Virginia want to ban transgender youth at risk for self-harm or suicide from accessing medical interventions such as hormone therapy. The GOP-controlled Legislature banned such interventions last year while allowing the self-harm and suicide exception. Now, a group of lawmakers want to eliminate that narrow definition, which requires parental consent and a diagnosis of severe gender dysphoria from two medical professionals, both of whom must provide written testimony that medical interventions are necessary to prevent or limit possible or actual self-harm.
A bill moved through the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee on Thursday that would require medical professionals to educate someone granted an abortion in West Virginia about possible risks.