Oklahoma has become the first state to ban puberty blockers for children under 18, as Republican Governor Kevin Stitt announced he will withhold hospital funds until doctors stop
prescribing the life-altering drugs to youth who aren’t old enough to vote, buy cigarettes or alcoholic beverages.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported Stitt signed a bill that effectively bans gender- reassignment drugs from being prescribed to minors at the state's main children's hospital.
The action blocks COVID relief funds from Oklahoma Children's Hospital at OU Health until it stops providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to under-18s.
Gov. Stitt said Tuesday: “By signing this bill today we are taking the first step to protect children from permanent gender transition surgeries and therapies.
“It is wildly inappropriate for taxpayer dollars to be used for condoning, promoting, or performing these types of controversial procedures on healthy children.”
Oklahoma Children's Hospital currently offers life-altering drugs to teenagers under 18 with parental approval. It is thought that around 100 minors are currently receiving treatment, reported the Daily Mail.
Stitt also called for the Republican-controlled state Legislature to ban some of those gender-affirming treatments statewide when it returns in February.
He said in a statement that he wanted a prohibition on “all irreversible gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies” on minors.
Stitt’s actions came after Alabama tried to make it a felony for doctors to prescribe puberty blockers to minors with a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.
But that move was blocked by a federal judge just a few days after it took effect in April.
Tennessee has banned doctors from providing the drugs to pre-pubescent minors, but older teens can still access the drugs.
Oklahoma Children's Hospital currently offers sex-change interventions, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and help finding surgeons who perform sex-change surgeries for people up to age 24.
Despite criticism and threats from the Far-Left Governor Stitt stood tall and also called on the Republican-led legislature to ban certain sex-change interventions outright when it returns to session in February.
The Daily Mail reported the Governor said, “We cannot turn a blind eye to what's happening all across our nation, and as governor I will not allow life-altering transition surgeries on minor children in the state of Oklahoma.”
At the same time Governor Stitt announced the Oklahoma ban, state legislators who are members of state Freedom Caucuses released a letter denouncing the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Children's Hospital Association for calling for the censorship of opponents of the genital mutilation of minors and supporting the use of these barbaric procedures on young children.
Signed by the leaders of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, the Nevada Freedom Caucus, South Dakota Freedom Caucus, the Arizona Freedom Caucus, the Illinois Freedom Caucus, the Mississippi Freedom Caucus, and the Georgia Freedom Caucus, the letter said in part:
...with your advocacy of childhood genital mutilation, your call to investigate those
who disagree with you, and your request for Big Tech to suppress constitutionally
protected free speech that challenges your leftist ideology, you have lost whatever
credibility you had left.
Though many children cannot choose between which toys they want to play with on any given day, your organizations and the depraved doctors that follow you are suggesting to kids, not even of grade school age, that they can determine what they will do with their God-given gender. They are ultimately pushing, and deciding for, these young children to take action which will result in irrevocable and irreparable harm. This so-called “gender affirming care” is both morally and ethically repugnant. Simply put, performing vaginoplasties, phalloplasties, double mastectomies or providing puberty blocking drugs to children as young as four is child abuse and we will not tolerate it. Furthermore, it is incredibly alarming that many of these atrocities are occurring at taxpayer-funded medical institutions. As members of our state freedom caucuses and our state legislatures, we unequivocally declare that these procedures are outside the scope of the proper use of funds we have allocated to our respective hospitals. We will fulfill our duty to stand in the gap and stop harm to any child by unnatural and
irreversible procedures. As state legislators, we are particularly charged with ensuring taxpayer-funded institutions take no part in furthering ethically and morally repugnant agendas inconsistent with the values of our states.
Collectively, and across the country, we will be pursuing a path to ensure no minors can receive these barbaric procedures. This includes calling on our governors to denounce this practice and using all available tools to end it. If proven non-compliant, these facilities will face repercussions for practices inconsistent with the values of the citizens of our states. This mutilation cannot and will not be tolerated in any form.
We applaud Governor Stitt of Oklahoma and the state Freedom Caucus leaders listed below for their leadership and opposition to this form of medically facilitated child abuse. We urge CHQ readers and friends to call their state legislators and governors to demand they follow suite.
State Rep. Adam Morgan
Chairman
South Carolina Freedom Caucus
State Rep. R.J. May
Vice-Chairman
South Carolina Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Jim Wheeler
Chairman
Nevada Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Jill Dickman
Vice-Chairwoman
Nevada Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Aaron Aylward
Chairman
South Dakota Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Tony Randolph
Vice-Chairman
South Dakota Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Jake Hoffman
Chairman
Arizona Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Jacqueline Parker
Vice-Chairwoman
Arizona Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Chris Miller
Chairman
Illinois Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour
Vice-Chairman
Illinois Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Dana Criswell
Chairman
Mississippi Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Dan Eubanks
Secretary
Mississippi Freedom Caucus
State Sen. Greg Dolezal
Chairman
Georgia Freedom Caucus
State Rep. Philip Singleton
Vice-Chairman
Georgia Freedom Caucus
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt
State Freedom Caucus letter
Sex-Change Operations
Parental consent
Oklahoma puberty blocker ban
hormone therapy
gender reassignment drugs ban for minors
childhood genital mutilation
child abuse
taxpayer funding