H-2482.1

HOUSE BILL 2241

State of Washington
68th Legislature
2024 Regular Session
ByRepresentatives Jacobsen and Christian
Read first time 01/09/24.Referred to Committee on Health Care & Wellness.
AN ACT Relating to prohibiting puberty blocking medications, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgeries for minors; and adding a new section to chapter 18.130 RCW.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1. A new section is added to chapter 18.130 RCW to read as follows:
(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, a health care provider licensed under this title may not knowingly engage in or cause any of the following practices to be performed on a minor if the practice is performed for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of, or affirm the minor's perception of, the minor's gender or sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex:
(a) Prescribing or administering gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues or other synthetic drugs used to stop luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone secretion, synthetic antiandrogen drugs used to block the androgen receptor, or any drug to suppress or delay normal puberty;
(b) Prescribing or administering testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone to a minor in an amount greater than would normally be produced endogenously in a healthy individual of that individual's age and sex;
(c) Performing surgeries that sterilize, including castration, vasectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and penectomy;
(d) Performing surgeries that artificially construct tissue with the appearance of genitalia that differs from the individual's sex, including metoidioplasty, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty; and
(e) Removing any healthy or nondiseased body part or tissue.
(2) The following services and treatments are not prohibited by this section:
(a) Services provided to a minor born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including a minor with external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous, such as a minor born with 46 XX chromosomes with virilization, 46 XY chromosomes with undervirilization, or having both ovarian and testicular tissue;
(b) Services provided to a minor who has otherwise been diagnosed with a disorder of sexual development by a physician, when the physician has determined through genetic or biochemical testing that the minor does not have a normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production, or sex steroid hormone action for a biological male or biological female;
(c) Services provided to taper a minor off of any puberty blocking medications or other hormones;
(d) The treatment of any infection, injury, disease, or disorder that has been caused or exacerbated by the performance of gender transition procedures, whether or not the procedures were performed in accordance with state and federal law; and
(e) Any procedure undertaken because a minor suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that is certified by a physician and that would place the minor in imminent danger of death or impairment of a major bodily function unless surgery is performed.
(3) For purposes of this section:
(a) "Gender" means the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female.
(b) "Minor" means an unemancipated person under 18 years of age.
(c) "Sex" means the biological indication of male and female, including sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth without regard to an individual's psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender.
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