CT weighs telehealth protections for abortion, gender-affirming care

A Connecticut legislative committee heard public testimony Monday on a bill that would expand the state’s existing “shield law,” which provides statutory protections for providers of abortion and gender-affirming care.

House Bill 7135 would add to the state’s current legal protections, safeguarding physicians who provide reproductive and gender-affirming services via telehealth to patients in other states. Several physicians testified that the measure provides added security in the face of national trends that are increasingly restricting access to reproductive care.

Kristin Newton, a family physician based in Warren, said the bill would help to protect the “sacred” relationship she shares with her patients.

“The idea that I could be criminally prosecuted for providing evidence-based and individualized care to one of my patients in this sacred space is reprehensible,” Newton wrote in submitted testimony. 

Several residents also applauded the protections Connecticut has already put in place, saying existing legislation has helped preserve access to reproductive and gender-affirming care. 

“I’ve been a citizen of Connecticut my whole life and I’ve had access to trans health care that has helped me live happily as myself for the past half decade. Had this not been the case, I likely would not be here to speak today, a sentiment that is echoed throughout other testimonies,” Madison Iofino said during the hearing at the state Capitol. 

In 2022, Connecticut became the first state to pass a “shield law” to protect those who come from outside the state to receive abortion and gender-affirming services, as well as the clinicians who provide them. The move came in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and, with it, the federal constitutional right to abortion. 

The following year, Connecticut legislators expanded those protections, passing a law that blocks state agencies from revoking licenses of physicians for providing reproductive care, among other measures. 

Recently, other states’ shield laws have faced real-world tests in the cases of a Texas lawsuit and a Louisiana indictment brought against a New York doctor, Margaret Carpenter, for abortion care provided via telehealth to residents of those states. 

Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, who serves as the co-chair of the Connecticut legislature’s Reproductive Rights Caucus, said he and other members of the caucus have expected such moves from states where abortion is outlawed for years.

“It’s something that we had been predicting for a very long time,” Blumenthal said in an interview with the Connecticut Mirror. “We were very proud to pass the first shield law in the country, but we owe it to our doctors, nurses and residents to have the strongest one possible.” 

Eight states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York, have shield laws that include protections for care provided via telemedicine.

Gender-affirming care for minors

Testimony before the Judiciary Committee Monday overwhelmingly supported the shield law expansion. Opposing testimony focused on gender-affirming care for minors, which the bill does not mention. 

Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, expressed concern that the law would shield physicians who provide gender-affirming surgical care for minors, and he questioned proponents of the bill about how often adults who received gender-affirming care as minors regret their decision.

Research suggests gender-affirming surgeries for minors are rare — as are cases where individuals regret undergoing gender-affirming care after the fact. But both do occur. 

Surgery is rarely used as treatment for transgender and gender-diverse children in the U.S., a 2024 Harvard study found. A study published in 2023 found that, out of a total 48,000 gender-affirming surgeries performed in the U.S. between 2016 and 2020, 7.7% were performed on children between the ages of 12 and 18. The vast majority of the procedures performed on children were breast and chest surgeries.

A review of 27 studies that pooled nearly 8,000 transgender patients who underwent gender-affirming surgeries found that roughly 1% regretted the procedure. But providers, as well as some advocates both in favor of and opposed to expansions of gender-affirming care, acknowledge that current research on the topic is limited.

Elle Palmer, who testified in opposition to the bill, said that at age 16 she sought gender-affirming care at Planned Parenthood in Montana and was put on testosterone. After several years she decided she wanted to detransition, but she said the organization wasn’t able to answer her questions about how to stop testosterone safely — such as whether to taper off, stop completely or begin taking estrogen, she said. 

“Almost six years later, I still have a deep voice,” Palmer said. “I was only on testosterone for three years. This effect is permanent.”

Palmer eventually turned to Reddit where other individuals undergoing detransition discussed how they stopped testosterone treatments. She does not live in Connecticut, but during an interview with the CT Mirror, she said she was invited, through connections she had made on the social media platform X, to testify at the hearing. Those connections included the Family Institute of Connecticut, an organization that frequently testifies against expansions to reproductive care.

Palmer has also testified against expansions to gender-affirming care bills in South Dakota.

Nancy Stanwood, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, said the organization is committed to providing high-quality, compassionate care to all patients.

“We offer gender-affirming hormone therapy to patients aged 18 and older and support them every step of the way, including if they wish to pause, adjust or stop treatment,” Stanwood wrote in a statement responding to questions about the care provided to people who decide to detransition.

Blumenthal and Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, co-chairs of the Reproductive Rights Caucus, confirmed that gender-affirming care for minors isn’t a part of the proposed legislation. Blumenthal said he was unsure why opposition to the bill focused on the topic.