California may act as US refuge for transgender youth

By DON THOMPSON | The Related Press

SACRAMENTO — California would current itself as a haven for transgender youth dealing with discrimination in different states below a invoice that superior Monday, a lot as it’s positioning itself as a sanctuary for these in search of abortions.

The Meeting accredited the measure with out debate, 48-16, sending it to the Senate for a last vote earlier than lawmakers adjourn at month’s finish.

The laws is designed to supply authorized refuge to oldsters from different states who danger having their transgender youngsters taken away or being criminally prosecuted in the event that they help their youngsters’s entry to gender-affirming procedures and different well being care.

Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener sought the measure in response to actions in a number of Republican-dominated states together with Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas. He stated 19 different states have since launched comparable “trans refuge state” payments.

“Trans youngsters and their dad and mom are being criminalized and used as political punching luggage by right-wing zealots,” he stated in an announcement. “Nobody ought to ever have to fret about being separated from their youngster merely for permitting that youngster to be who they’re.”

Conservative teams argued the invoice may protect dad and mom who use it as a pretext.

The invoice mimics a brand new California regulation that bars the enforcement of civil judgments towards medical doctors who carry out abortions on sufferers from different states. It’s amongst a number of measures designed to make California a sanctuary for individuals in search of or offering abortions.

The transgender invoice would equally reject any out-of-state court docket judgments eradicating transgender youngsters from their dad and mom’ custody as a result of they allowed their youngsters to obtain gender-affirming healthcare.

It could additionally bar California well being officers from complying with out-of-state subpoenas in search of medical or associated details about individuals who journey to California for gender-affirming care.

The measure would additionally prohibit arrests or extraditions of individuals charged with violating one other state’s regulation that criminalizes permitting an individual to obtain or present gender-affirming well being care.

Brad Dacus, president of the conservative nonprofit Pacific Justice Institute, stated it will permit dad and mom to deliver their youngsters to California “below the guise of securing genital surgical procedures,” a transfer he equated to “kidnapping youngsters from conservative states.”

It could “make California a secure haven for youngster abductors and predators” and “condone the taking of kids from different states in violation of court docket orders,” he warned in a fundraising letter to supporters.

The invoice would permit judges to take non permanent jurisdiction over any youngster who comes into California for gender-affirming care even when they’re introduced in by somebody aside from their dad and mom, objected Greg Burt of the California Household Council.

He stated the invoice “declares battle on dad and mom all through the nation who don’t need their youngsters sterilized due to their gender dysphoria.”