Editor’s note: S.37 is scheduled to be voted on Tuesday morning by the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. If approved, it will likely return to the Senate floor this week.
by Renee McGuinness
S.37 proposes to:
- Require insurance companies to fully fund (no copays or deductibles) exclusively gender-affirming care, making gender-affirming care a priority over all other types of medical care, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.
- Requires Vermonters to pay for gender-affirming services that Federal Medicaid will not cover.
- Shields practitioners of gender-affirming care in Vermont from increases in malpractice premiums, at a time when:
- Many youth that have transitioned are experiencing the devastating physical and psychological consequences of transition regret.
- A class-action lawsuit against UK Tavistock gender clinic has been initiated.
- Countries in Europe are re-assessing and changing their standards of care due to negative impacts of exclusively gender-affirming care.
Last year, legislators claimed Article 22, the reproductive liberty amendment to the State Constitution, would keep government out of decision-making between patients and their doctors.
This year, S.37 codifies exclusively gender-affirming care for minors on pages 2 and 3, usurping parents’ rights and responsibilities to guide their children’s medical care, and leaving minors unprotected.
Please call your Senator(s) and ask them to vote “No” on S.37: share your personal reasons why, as a parent, grandparent, and citizen of Vermont, you oppose S.37.
You can find your senator(s) by town here.
Please forward this email to like-minded friends and family members and ask them to join the VFA email contact list.
Vermont Family Alliance is a parental rights and minor protections advocacy group. The author is a Monkton resident.
