Nebraska is imposing a 7-day wait for trans youth to start gender-affirming medications [View all]
Source: AP
Updated 3:54 PM EDT, October 1, 2023
Nebraska is requiring transgender youth seeking gender-affirming care to wait seven days to start puberty blocking medications or hormone treatments under emergency regulations announced Sunday by the state health department.
The regulations also require transgender minors to undergo at least 40 hours of “gender-identity-focused” therapy that are “clinically neutral” before receiving any medical treatments meant to affirm their gender identities. A new law that took effect Sunday bans gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth under 19 and also required the state’s chief medical officer to spell out when and how those youth can receive other care.
The state Department of Health and Human Services announcement that Republican Gov. Jim Pillen had approved the emergency regulations came after families, doctors and even lawmakers said they had largely gotten no response from the department on when the regulations would be in place. They worried that Pillen’s administration was slow-walking them to block treatments for transgender youth who hadn’t already started them.
“The law went into effect today, which is when the emergency regulations were put in place,” department spokesperson Jeff Powell said in an email Sunday to The Associated Press. “Nothing was slow-walked.” The new regulations remain in effect while the department takes public comments on a permanent set of rules. The agency said it plans to release a proposed final version by the end of October and then have a public hearing on Nov. 28 in Lincoln, the state capital.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-minors-nebraska-genderaffirming-care-6c2530ba89e90cff64119548b61f7049
= new reply since forum marked as read