Republicans in Kentucky resurrected several “dead” bills aimed at its transgender residents this week, successfully jamming them through the state legislature with only hours left in the session.
On Wednesday, it appeared that House Bill 470, which is mostly a gender-affirming care ban preventing doctors from providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors, would not pass due to infighting among Republicans. But the next day, lawmakers repackaged much of the bill’s language and added it to another anti-trans bill, SB 150, which as first introduced would force schools to out trans children to their families and potentially withhold health services at parents’ demand. Republicans also added language from HB 177, a “parental rights in education” bill similar to Florida’s, stitching together an omnibus bill that raised SB 150’s length from five pages to 30.
Republicans then fast-tracked the new version of SB 150 through the process before most Democrats or LGBTQ+ advocates knew what was happening. According to the Lousiville Courier-Journal, Sen. Max Wise and Rep. David Meade called a last-minute meeting of the House Education Committee on Thursday afternoon, pushing the bill through before a digital copy of the amended bill had even been delivered to legislators. Republicans called a full House vote 30 minutes later, and both chambers approved the bill on nearly party-line votes; Rep. Ashley Tackett Laferty was the only Democrat to vote in favor.
The new version of SB 150 includes a mandate for doctors to medically detransition trans minors in their care, allows teachers to misgender students at school, bars trans students from using bathrooms that match their gender, and bans any mention of sexual orientation or gender identity in classroom discussion, including a blanket ban on STI and human sexuality education for grades K-6. Kentucky lawmakers also passed SB 145 on Thursday, requiring school sports teams to admit students only on the basis of “biological sex” assigned at birth.
“This is absolutely willful hate for a small group of people that are the weakest and most vulnerable,” said Sen. Karen Berg during the final floor debate. Berg’s trans son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, died by suicide in December at the age of 24.
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In a statement, the ACLU of Kentucky called SB 150 “the worst anti-trans bill in the nation,” vowing to challenge it in court should it become law.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has said he opposes the bill and is expected to veto it, but Republicans have enough votes to overrule the governor’s pen, as they have done in the past over other anti-trans legislation.
Still, the GOP doesn’t have a complete death grip on its members, and that override isn’t a sure thing yet. Republican Reps. Kim Banta, Stephanie Dietz and Killian Timoney all voted against the bill in the House, signaling there may still be meaningful dissent against the legislation.
“I think that it’s more important to support kids through the process than it is to pass legislation on who they are,” Timoney told his colleagues during debate. “I’m not going to comment on how my values might be different, but I just know that when I stand before God on my judgment day, he’s gonna say, ‘who did you love?’ And I’m gonna say ‘everybody.’”
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