Oklahoma House passes gender-affirming treatment bill

House Bill 2177, by Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, and Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, not only would ban all gender-reassignment therapies for minors, including hormones, puberty-blockers and surgery, but also would bar state funds or private insurers from covering those procedures for anyone, including adults.

Adults could still receive the treatments but would have to pay for them out of their own pockets.

The bill passed 80-18 along strict party lines, with Republicans arguing that they were protecting children and Democrats contending that they actually were doing the opposite.

HB 2177 is similar to Senate Bill 613, by Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, which passed the Senate two weeks ago. SB 613 does not include a prohibition on private insurance and would apply only to minors.

Although the outcome was not in doubt, the House spent more than two hours on HB 2177 as Democrats peppered West with questions and forced debate. The proceedings were intently watched by a crowd mostly opposed to the bill that let its feelings be known through applause and occasional outbursts. A few were ordered out of the gallery; after announcement of the final vote, someone could be heard shouting, “You’re killing children.”

A few minutes later, Olsen and fellow Rep. Bob Ed Culver, R-Tahlequah, were doused with water in a passageway outside the chamber. At least one person was reportedly arrested and Culver said he would press charges because the person scuffled with Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers.

West and most of those speaking in favor of HB 2177 insisted it is not anti-trans and tended to describe transgender people, and especially transgender minors, as mentally ill or psychologically damaged.

Rep. Randy Randleman, R-Eufaula, the Legislature’s only child psychologist, said “transgenderism” is mostly the result of the person’s “relationship with their father” or some other trauma, an assessment that didn’t set well with Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, who has a transgender child with whom he is close.

Rep. J.J. Humphrey, R-Lane, never the most subtle House member, said allowing people to believe they are transgender is comparable to allowing someone who thinks they’re Superman to jump off a building.

“The very fact you have to request a surgery to change your sex, Scooby-Doo would call that a clue,” Humphrey said. “And Scooby-Doo would also say, ‘Ruh-roh.’”

West and Olsen presented their bill as mostly about protecting minors from unproven, dangerous and in the case of surgery, irreversible treatments and procedures, but in practice the greater impact might be the ban on insurance coverage for adults.

“With the emergency (clause) on this bill and the insurance clause, we are effectively saying if folks cannot afford the out-of-pocket (expenses) they need to survive, they cannot stay in Oklahoma,” said Rep. Mauree Turner, D-Oklahoma City, the Legislature’s only openly non-binary member. “That’s saying our trans community is not welcome in Oklahoma.”

West, a cabinetmaker by trade who has immersed himself in issues such as COVID-19 precautions, vaccines and abortion, acknowledged he has no medical training, but said he has studied transgender treatments and procedures enough to know that none are unanimously endorsed by professionals in the field. That, he said, is reason enough to prevent minors from receiving anything other than counseling and psychological care.

But he, too, sounded skeptical of the notion that many, if any, people are truly transgender.

“Denying the truth that we are either male or female hurts real people, especially vulnerable children,” West said in closing debate. “Science and common sense tells us children are not mature enough to properly evaluate the serious lifelong ramifications when making important medical decisions. This bill will allow these children the opportunity to grow and realize who they are before receiving life-altering procedures.”