YOUTH
S. Dakota Senate Kills Bill Barring Trans Youth Care
Measure was second curb on gender identity recognition to die in state this year
BY MATT TRACY
A bill that would have
criminalized doctors
who provide gender-affi
rming care for transgender
youth in South Dakota has
died before reaching the State Senate
fl oor, concluding a controversial
legislative push that drew national
disgust and a swift call to action
by LGBTQ rights advocates.
The Senate Health and Human
Services Committee on February
10 voted 5-2 to kill an amended
version of the bill less than two
weeks after the House of Representatives
overwhelmingly approved
the legislation by a 56-23 margin.
Had it passed the committee, it
could have advanced to the State
Senate fl oor for a full vote. Republicans
control both houses of the
State Legislature and there was
wide concern that GOP conservatives
would ensure its passage in
the upper house.
But advocacy and civil rights
organizations — led by the American
Civil Liberties Union of South
Dakota, along with the Human
Rights Campaign — aggressively
opposed the bill, and they were not
alone. The South Dakota Pharmacists
Association, the South Dakota
Chapter of the American College
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
the South Dakota Chamber
Protestors gathered in front of the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre on February 10 to demand that lawmakers
reject a bill criminalizing gender affi rming care for youth.
of Commerce and Industry, and
the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of
Commerce also stood against the
legislation, among others.
Republican State Representative
Fred Deutsch, who championed
the bill in the lower chamber and
became an infl ammatory voice in
support of it, had originally compared
gender-affi rming care to the
Holocaust and said that he did not
want children to face “bizarre medical
experiments.” But after numerous
TWITTER/ @ACLUSOUTHDAKOTA
advocates packed a hearing
room ahead of the committee vote
on February 10, Deutsch requested
that the bill be amended to remove
criminal penalties against doctors,
according to the Sioux Falls Argus
Leader. Instead, he wanted to allow
youth who undergo gender reassignment
surgery to fi le lawsuits if
they regretted the surgery.
That still wasn’t enough. The
seven-member Senate committee
— which has one Democrat and
six Republicans — went on to reject
the legislation.
“Though supporters claimed
House Bill 1057 was aimed at protecting
vulnerable youth, it was
clearly fueled by a fear and misunderstanding
of transgender South
Dakotans,” Libby Skarin, policy director
for the ACLU of South Dakota,
said in a written statement. “It’s
time we stop these attacks and the
very real harm they cause to transgender
youth across our state. Let
this be a signal to the South Dakota
Legislature that discrimination
against a marginalized group is a
distraction from the needs of the
state and hurts us all.”
The ACLU threatened to sue the
state if the bill was approved and
eventually signed into law, but it
was never clear whether Republican
Governor Kristi Noem would
have been willing to sign it anyway.
She expressed hesitancy during a
press conference in January, saying
she had “concerns” about it.
It was the second time in less
than a week that a South Dakota
Senate committee kept an antitransgender
bill from advancing.
The Education Committee unanimously
voted against a bill requiring
school counselors, school psychologists,
and social workers to
tell parents if a student identifi es
as transgender or voices feelings of
gender dysphoria.
MILITARY
Judge Loses Patience on DOJ Trans Military Stall
Trump administration playing for time to avoid negative ruling on the merits
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
This is onlyUS District
Judge Marsha Pechman,
on February 7,
issued yet another in a
series of discovery orders in Karnoski
v. Trump, one of the four
federal court challenges to the
constitutionality of President Donald
Trump’s transgender military
service ban.
Pechman, backed up by a Ninth
Circuit panel, has determined
that the ban discriminates based
on gender identity and is subject
to heightened scrutiny under the
Fifth Amendment’s equal protection
requirement, and judging from
this opinion she is clearly getting
fed up by the Justice Department’s
delay strategy in the case.
Since the Supreme Court stayed
Pechman’s preliminary injunction
(and ultimately, preliminary injunctions
from three other courts
were lifted, as well), the trans ban
went into effect last April while
the litigation continues. The policy
clearly discriminates against
applicants and service members
due to their gender identity. The
Justice Department’s strategy
now is to avoid a ruling on the
merits against the government by
stretching out discovery as long as
possible.
The district courts have already
determined that a number of
claims of deliberative process privilege
asserted by the government
are invalid in this suit, where the
➤ MILITARY BAN, continued on p.15
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