Utah is the first U.S. state this year to ban most minors from receiving body-altering transgender surgeries or puberty blockers.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed the legislation on Jan. 28, after the measure, SB16, received final approval by the state Senate a day earlier on a 20–8 vote; two Republican state senators joined with the chamber’s six Democrats in voting against the bill. The House voted 58-14 earlier in the week to pass the proposal.
The measure, which takes effect immediately, prohibits health care providers from performing transgender surgeries or prescribing hormone therapy for minors who haven’t yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria—a term that the Mayo Clinic defines as “the feeling of discomfort or distress … in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics.”…