Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has vetoed a bill that was meant to protect children from transgender gender-change surgeries and other procedures like giving kids cross-sex hormones.
House Bill 648, known as the “Stop Harming Our Kids Act,” was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature along party lines in early June.
The bill sought to prohibit hormone treatments for minors as well as puberty-blocking drugs and gender reassignment surgery, such as giving girls who identify as boys double mastectomies, which critics have decried as a form of mutilation.
“If HB 648 doesn’t become law, we will be sending a horrible message to our children,” Louisiana state Sen. Jeremy Stine, a Republican, wrote on Twitter after the bill’s passage and as questions swirled around whether it would receive a veto….