With tears in her eyes, northern Kentucky Rep. Kim Banta (R-Ft. Mitchell) said that she’s worked so hard to prevent conversion therapy in the LGBTQ community.
Just moments after the House Judiciary Committee passed House Bill 470 — which would ban transition services for youth under 18 — Banta said she felt upset.
“I’m really upset for families right now. I’m upset because I feel like we denigrated the medical profession. I feel like we’re making people feel less than and I don’t like that.”
Banta cast one of seven no votes on the committee, with two other NKY legislators — Rep. Kim Moser (R-Taylor Mill) and Rep. Stephanie Dietz (R-Edgewood) also casting no votes.
Moser, the chair of the Health Services, ripped into the bill.
“I understand the desire to keep our kids safe from predatory actions, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Moser said. “I think this is, unfortunately, short-sighted and discriminatory. It sets Kentucky back decades.”
House Bill 470 passed out of committee just after 1:30 p.m with fourteen ‘yes’ votes — NKY Reps. Steve Rawlings (R-Burlington), Marianne Proctor (R-Union), Savannah Maddox (R-Dry Ridge), and Steve Doan (R-Erlanger) voted in favor of the bill.
In committee, the bill received passionate testimony from those in favor and those against — however, the meeting went in an unusual order.
Usually, legislators present the bill first. HB470 contained a committee sub — a change to the bill’s original version — that the public or the press didn’t have access to until Rep. Jennifer Decker (R-Waddy) presented the substitute after hearing testimony against the previous version of the bill.
“There is no quality long-term study to establish that there is no long-term benefit to gender transition services,” Decker said of the argument that preventing these transition services would lead to suicide.
In addition to banning transition services for those under 18, the bill would also require an investigation of any reports of this happening. A doctor would also lose their license and be financially viable for any services. It would also allow a parent to take legal action against the doctor within 30 years of the youth receiving the transition.
“We wonder why we have poor health metrics here in Kentucky,” Moser said. “We are undermining physician training and discretion.”
Chris Bolling, a retired pediatrician from NKY, said the bill would make it nearly impossible for pediatric medical providers to practice in the Commonwealth.
“It labels medical treatment, that is the standard of care for patients with gender dysphoria, as unprofessional and unethical,” Bolling said.
Further, “It mandates the revocation of the license of any provider who provides or refers to the scare and criminalizes not reporting to minors who are referring to this care,” Bolling said.
Chris Hartman, the executive director of the Fairness Campaign, gave passionate testimony saying the government has tried to criminalize the LGBTQ community and failed.
“You did not stop us from forming our beautiful and perfect families when you denied us the right to marry and to adopt children, and you will not erase us today,” Hartman said.
Luka Hein, who detransitioned, said she received a double mastectomy and hormone therapy at 16 and urged the committee to vote in favor of the bill.
“I was affirmed on a path of medical intervention that I could not fully understand the long-term impacts and consequences of nor fully consent to use it with my age and mental health.”
Dr. Christian Van Mol, who serves on the boards of Bethel Church of Redding and Moral Revolution (moralrevolution.com)— a California church that gained notoriety for something called “grave sucking” where members would lie on the graves of dead revivalists and believed they would absorb the dead person anointing from God.
“Transition affirming medical interventions actually imperil at-risk and gender dysphoric youth,” Van Mol said in the committee meeting.
After the bill passed the committee, LGBTQ advocates lined the hall of the Kentucky Capitol Annex chanting “Shame.”
However, legislators ushered the bill to the House floor, which convened at 2:00 p.m. and took up the bill at about 2:40 p.m.
As advocates chanted outside the House chamber, members voted to pass the bill by a vote of 75-22 – the only Republicans voting no were NKY Reps. Banta, Dietz, and Moser.
Moser’s statement on the floor noted that the eyes of the world were on Kentucky today.
“I would like to say to the rest of the world that’s watching Kentucky — we are not complete neanderthals,” Moser said.