DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Legislature passed SF 538, a bill prohibiting minors from receiving “gender transitioning procedures.”
The Iowa Senate passed the bill by a 33 to 16 vote on Tuesday, with Republicans supporting the measure and Democrats opposing it. The Iowa House of Representatives passed the legislation on Wednesday by a largely partisan 58 to 39 vote. State Rep. Megan Jones, R-Sioux Rapids, was the lone Republican to join House Democrats opposing the bill.
The bill prohibits healthcare professionals from specific medical and surgical procedures on minors “for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of, or affirm the minor’s perception of, the minor’s gender or sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
Those procedures include:
- Prescribing puberty blockers for this purpose
- Prescribing testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone in an amount greater than would typically be produced by a healthy individual of that individual’s age and sex
- Performing surgeries that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and penectomy.
- Performing surgeries that artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the individual’s sex, including metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty.
- Removing any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.
The bill does not apply to treatment for minors with medically verifiable sex development disorders. It also allows the treatment of any infection, injury, disease, or disorder caused or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures, whether or not the procedure was legal under state or federal law.
Also, the bill does not include any procedure undertaken because a minor suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that is certified by a physician, and that would place the minor in imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function unless surgery is performed.
Healthcare professionals who violate the law are subject to licensee discipline by the appropriate licensing board or entity. The bill also provides that healthcare professionals could be subject to civil action.
The bill heads to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk.
Read the bill below:
SF538
