August 10.2020 -- in a stunning reversal the CA senate Health Committee passes AB2218 out of committee.
The Senate Health Committee had announced July 31st, 2020 that AB 2218, a bill that to fund trans-affirming treatments, died in committee. The bill was already approved largely along party lines in the Assembly with little debate. The Senate Health Committee Chair, pediatrician Dr. Richard Pan, originally indicated AB 2218 was NOT on the list of bills to be heard in their last committee hearing.
After weeks of activism from the California Family Council and other like-minded conservative pro-family organizations, the bill was not on the docket to be considered by the Senate Health Committee. But on August 10, 2020 the bill was PASSED out of committee. The full senate will probably pass it later this month.
Positively Waiting alerted parents and voters about AB2218 in the July Newsletter and many people took action. Several of the groups hand-delivered copies of “Irreversible Damage,” a recently published book which details the alarming social phenomenon of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” emerging among teen girls. Apparently to no avail.
This bill will establish a Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund to finance medical interventions for trans-identifying individuals. These interventions will include puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones (testosterone for females, estrogen for males), and mutilating surgeries such as mastectomies and castrations.
Opponents point out that AB 2218 will fund sterilizing children. Bill sponsor Assemblyman Miguel Santiago testified at the Senate hearing that "nothing [in the bill] talks about sterilizing kids. Nothing, I will repeat, in this bill points to anything to do with children." Senator Susan Rubio chimed in that she had read the bill "very, very carefully' but 'didn’t find anything about sterilizing children."
Although the word "sterilize" is not in the bill itself, gender-affirming health care services, such as [but presumably not limited to] hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery are a standard part of gender clinics’ services, they could be funded as well. All of these interventions lead to sterilization.
In fact UCSF is working together with Children’ Hospital Los Angeles on a taxpayer-funded study, launched by the National Institutes of Health. They use a consent form that warns prospective subjects that infertility is a probable consequence of participation. Young participants in the study are told that the progression of hormonal drugs “will likely lead to infertility.” The researchers then address their parents as follows:
“If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs,” the consent form reads. “This means they will not be able to have biological children.”
California Family Council arranged for Dr. Quentin Van Meter to testify in opposition to AB 2218 in the Assembly Health Committee earlier this year. Dr. Van Meter, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist, told legislators that children treated with cross-sex hormones for their gender confusion have “significant mental health issues” that remain even after hormone therapy. Van Meter warned legislators that the state would be sued in the coming years. Transgender affirming treatments destroy healthy body tissue, sterilize the recipient, and cause irreversible damage, and funding them would make the state liable.
However, it appears that a majority of CA legislators are unwilling to deviate from the LGTBQ+ directives.