Louisiana House overrides governor’s veto to becomes 21st state to pass SAFE Act law 

by Chris Lange

Chris Lange, FISM News

 

The Louisiana House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to override Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto of a bill to protect minors from sex-change procedures. The vote fell primarily along party lines, with seven Democrats joining Republicans to toss the veto. The state senate already voted in favor of the override.

House Bill 648, which is set to go into effect Jan 1, bars healthcare workers from providing surgical or chemical conversion therapy to create for an underage person a gender identity that is “inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” The bill specifically forbids the “removal of any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue,” including mastectomies, hysterectomies, and sterilizations. The bill also prohibits puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone injunctions in children. 

The House vote makes Louisiana the 21st U.S. state to protect minors from often irreversible procedures that have tragically skyrocketed in recent years with the rise of transgender ideology in the U.S.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana state legislator, applauded the vote, tweeting “Praise God.” 

“‘Gender-affirming care’ is not scientifically supported and is in direct opposition to good mental health practice,” Perkins wrote. “The majority of kids who are gender confused outgrow discomfort with their developing bodies.”

Detransitioner Chloe Cole, an outspoken critic of sex-altering procedures on children, called the veto override a “major win” for the children of Louisiana.

“Louisiana legislature overrode the governor veto on the bill that saved children from being used for gender medical experimentation like I went through,” Cole wrote, referring to the double-mastectomy she underwent at 15. 

“This was the last state in the south that was sterilizing and cutting up children,” she added. She noted in a separate tweet that Louisiana was the first state in which she shared her “cautionary tale” about the long-term physical and emotional effects of trans surgeries on kids.

Gov. Edwards vetoed the bill on June 29, claiming in a statement that it “needlessly harms a very small population of vulnerable children, their families, and their health care professionals.” 

NEARLY THREE QUARTERS OF RED STATES PASSED SAFE ACT LAWS AS MOMENTUM BUILDS

With every state that passes Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE Act) laws, momentum builds for others to follow suit.

The Washington Stand reported this week that nearly three-quarters (72%) of Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed laws protecting minors from sex-altering procedures. The exceptions are Alaska, Kansas, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. North Carolina and Ohio legislators are “close” to passing SAFE Act bills, while none have been introduced in either Alaska or Wisconsin. SAFE Act bills in the other four states have either failed to pass both chambers or expired at the committee level. 

“Although these eight states failed to pass a bill protecting children this year, it’s possible they may do so next year, now that a majority of likeminded states have done so,” the Stand’s Joshua Arnold wrote. “[T]his is particularly true for Kansas and Wyoming, where a bill did pass overwhelmingly in one chamber, and where nearly all neighboring states have enacted these protections for minors.”

He noted that SAFE bills were introduced in six out of 19 Democrat-controlled state legislatures, though none have been submitted for a committee vote. 

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT SAYS NEWSOM’S TRANS ‘SANCTUARY’ LAW ALIENATES PARENTS

At the other end of the spectrum are Democratic-led states that have designated themselves as “sanctuaries” for child gender transitions without parental consent. 

Among them is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom passed a radical law to strip parents of custody of their children for refusing to allow them to pursue trans procedures.

One Golden State mom said the law has alienated parents like her. 

Erin Friday, a registered California Democrat who supports same-sex marriage and considers herself to be non-religious, said the law is reflective of the massive effort to indoctrinate kids on the “lies” of transgender ideology. 

Friday told World News that most Democratic families that she knows in California are opposed to so-called “gender affirmative care” on minors.

Friday shared that her daughter announced that she was “a transgender boy” just before entering the ninth grade, when the world was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“[T]hat was my first entry point to understand how pervasive the transgender ideology is in our public schools,” she said. Friday said she also became increasingly aware of the way in which “the internet…is pushing this agenda on these kids,” specifically targeting “the kids who are vulnerable.”

Friday, a licensed attorney and co-lead of OurDuty-USA, an international group of parents and advocates committed to protecting children and vulnerable adults from gender ideology, asserted that “[n]ot one of these children [who come out as transgender] don’t have a comorbid mental health issue. And we’re taking these kids who are depressed and anxious with ADHD, OCD, um, autism, and we’re telling them that their distress will disappear if they just transition.”

Friday said that she is not part of any “right-wing” group but rather that she and many other parents, including Democrats, “are opposed to…pumping young children with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries.”

Friday accused the Democratic Party in California of “ignor[ing]  the masses of parents…voicing their concerns about what is being taught to their children, both at school and then being foisted on them through laws” and healthcare providers who “affirm these gender identities.”

She added that, until recently, the term “trans child” didn’t even exist.

“This is a new terminology,” she said.

DONATE NOW