State Senate Yet Again Fails Alabama's Youth, Parents, Doctors and Schools

Today, the Alabama State Senate voted to approve Senate Bill 10, which effectively bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Senate Bill 10 will now move on to the Alabama House for consideration.

The following statement is from Scott McCoy, SPLC interim deputy director, LGBTQ Rights & Special Litigation:

“Once again, the Alabama State Senate voted along party lines to pass Senate Bill 10, which would effectively ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

“This bill is harmful for several reasons. First, it would remove control of vital health care decisions from transgender youth, their families and their doctors and inserts government where it doesn’t belong. Second, it would expose medical professionals who treat transgender youth to criminal sanctions. Third, it would put educators and school personnel in a legal and ethical conflict by requiring them to out transgender students to hostile parents.

“The Alabama State Senate is dangerously close to passing yet another piece of discriminatory legislation that likely will lead to long and expensive litigation at high cost to Alabama taxpayers.

“The Alabama legislature should be getting families back to work, equipping medical professionals to pull us out of this pandemic, and opening schools – not attacking transgender youth and anyone who supports them. We continue to urge the Alabama legislature to stop targeting transgender people, especially transgender youth, and get back to the real work of helping everyday Alabamians.”