By Gavin Pendergraff, Daniel Mutai and Emmett McKeel

 

     Anti-trans laws won’t push Moss Lavender Abla out of Oklahoma. Rather than move away as his parents offered, the 16-year-old trans-youth said he will fight the GOP’s legislative efforts to outlaw gender-affirming care for teens and others.

 

     “I’m most scared for the other kids,” said Abla of Moore. “I have only two years until I’m 18 and can get a lot of this stuff. You know the suicide rates for trans youth goes up a lot when these type of things pass.”

Oklahoma Republican legislators filed 40 bills this session targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Similar bills have been filed in 48 other states.

 

     In Oklahoma, Senate Bill 129 would have created the Millstone Act, which would have cut state funding for health care providers offering gender-affirming care to anyone under age 26. Both private and public insurances also would have been barred from covering gender-transition procedures.

 

     SB 129 is dead for this legislative session. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amended version of the bill by a vote of 14-6 on March 1. It was not heard on the Senate floor by the required deadline.

 

     But in late April, legislators passed SB 613 banning gender-transition surgeries and hormone therapies for children under age 18. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it into law on May 1. The statute take effect Nov. 1.

     

     The new law prohibits gender-transition procedures, including surgery and “puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, or other drugs to suppress or delay normal puberty or to promote the development of feminizing or masculinizing features consistent with the opposite biological sex,” for minors.

 

     Children already taking puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones may continue the treatment until June 1, 2024, solely for the purpose of gradually decreasing and discontinuing use of the drugs or hormones.

 

     Under the new law, providing gender-transition procedures to children is a felony. Health care providers can be prosecuted until the minor turns age 45. They also can have their licenses revoked for “unprofessional conduct.”

The Senate sponsors were Republicans Julie Daniels, David Bullard, Shane Jett, George Burns, Michael Bergstrom, Warren Hamilton, Tom Woods, Cody Rogers, Blake Stephens, Nathan Dahm and Rob Standridge. In the House, Republicans Toni Hasenbeck, David Hardin, Kevin West, Tom Gann and Denise Crosswhite Hader sponsored the bill.

 

     Jett of Shawnee, who also co-sponsored SB 129, said children need protection from health care providers wanting to make money off them by providing expensive gender-transition surgeries.

 

     As introduced, the Millstone Act would have made it a felony for health care professionals to refer someone under age 26 for gender-transition procedures or to provide the procedure. They could have been prosecuted up to 40 years afterward.

 

     “Child abuse is a felony in our state and mutilating a young person’s genitalia should be viewed no differently,” the bill’s original author, Republican Sen. David Bullard of Durant, said in a press release. “The Millstone Act will hold those who perform child mutilation accountable by making such activity a felony. ”

 

     The criminal penalty was removed from the amended version, but SB 613’s penalties for a violation include felony charges, license revocation and civil actions. 

 

     Democratic Sen. Julia Kirt of Oklahoma City, who voted against SB 613, said bills remove the option for parents and their children to get advice from health care professionals.

 

     “A dad came over to talk to me a couple weeks ago,” she said. “They’re looking at moving. They haven’t sought any surgical care but just advice, expertise, trying to understand implications. There was a discussion around possible treatment, but they hadn’t even sought medicine, yet.”

 

     Bullard said the Millstone Act’s name referred to “Matthew 18:6, ‘but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.’”

 

     But one reverend said it’s “very easy for people to cherry pick Bible verses to back up their beliefs.”

 

     “It is my understanding as a minister that the Bible doesn't say anything. We interpret it,” said Rev. Lori Walke of Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

 

     Walke, who opposed the Millstone Act, said she does not believe religion should be used politically to “harass an enemy.”

 

     “We have to very, very careful to use Scripture wisely and with discernment, and we certainly have to use love to interpret Scripture and not Scripture to interpret love,” she said.

 

     “The Gospel is political,” she said. “Politics are those things which organize us into community and how the community is shaped. That can be into a society that is homophobic, sexist, racist, xenophobic, or not.

 

     “People of any faith … should be engaged in politics, should be engaged in a shaping of our community,” Walke said. “From a Christian perspective, I believe that we should be shaping our communities into a reflection of God’s justice and God’s peace and God’s mercy.”

 

     Walke preaches inclusivity and progressive values to her congregation. She has seen transgender people join her church and has members serving as deacons.

 

     “It is of utmost importance,” Walke said. “We believe that we should only reject the people that Jesus rejected, which turns out is no one.”

 

     A Stillwater church leader who supported the Millstone Act said he preaches politics from his pulpit.

“I’ve lost some people in the church because of that,” said Pastor Rusty Rhoads of Calvary Assembly of God. “Where are you going to hear the biblical perspective if it’s not preached in the pulpit?”

 

     Rhoads said he supports banning gender-affirming care that, in his opinion, causes spiritual and physical harm. He said the ban is needed to protect Christian values in Oklahoma. His opposition to gender reassignment comes from his love for Jesus Christ and his concern for the souls of others, he said.

 

     “This stuff you’re talking about is not worth missing eternity, because it’s forever,” Rhoads said. “You don’t get a second chance. That's why I am in business, because if I didn’t care, I would shut my Bible, get off the pulpit, tell people to go to hell and go play golf.”

 

     He said allowing people to identify as a different gender would open the door for people to identify as anything they want.

 

     “First of all, you can’t just identify as something and get it.” Rhoads said. “If that was the case, I would be an Indian and get Indian hospitalization and money. There's a lot of things, I can say I’m an NBA player, am I going to get on their payroll? If I'm going to say I'm a cat, are you going to get me some litter boxes?”

 

     SB 613 defines gender transition as “medical or surgical services performed for the purpose of attempting to affirm the minor's perception of his or her gender or biological sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor's biological sex.”

 

     Moss Abla’s mother has been with him through the transition process. Both are aware of the risks after talking with the doctors providing the treatment.

 

     “There's a whole sit-down talking about the risks and the things that are reversible and the things that are not,” Leslie Abla said. “It's called informed consent, and it's important within the medical community. I think our legislators forget that we have that.”

 

     Moss Abla recently started testosterone treatment. Prior to the treatments, he and his mother had met with the doctors on a Zoom call.

 

     “We talked about my goals,” Moss Abla said. “What I wanted my body to look like and what I wanted my voice to sound like.”

 

      He said gender-affirming care gives him a sense of peace knowing he socially presents exactly how he feels.

 But Rhoads contended that allowing gender-affirming care increases suicide rates because of regret.

 

     “Have you seen the suicide rates of those who actually went through the surgery and not just cowardly said they’re something they’re not,” Rhoads said. “The highest is in this category, [trans youth and adults] and that's a shame.”

 

     But studies suggest the vast majority of those who undergo gender-transition surgeries don’t experience regret and having access to gender-affirming care results in lower suicide rates.

 

     Of 7,928 people who underwent gender transition surgeries, only 1% experienced regret, according to a 2021 study published in the International Open Access Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

           

     A 2022 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that teenagers who received either puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones had 60% lower odds of depression and 73% lower odds of suicidal thoughts or self-harm.

 

     Leslie Abla finds it hard to believe that the state legislators who proposed these laws did so because they care about transgender people.

 

     “It's hard to truly believe that,” she said. “Especially after talking to some of them, sharing our feelings and also actual research. Their response has been, ‘Well, we'll just agree to disagree.’”

 

     Moss Abla wants to see more non-LGBTQ+ people at rallies to advocate for his right to continue the care that gives him peace.

 

     “It's not enough to say it's OK to be queer or trans,” he said. “You have to be actively fighting for them.”

Abla said Republican legislators are “definitely targeting trans kids the most.”

 

     “You know, they come for us first and they come for everyone else later,” he said.

 

     Abla agreed that some legislators should sit down with a transgender person and have a genuine conversation before writing bills such as the Millstone Act and SB 613.

 

     “I hear so much misinformation,” he said. “It’s like, did you even look at the science? You don’t even have to talk to a trans person, at least just do research.”

 

     Through discussion, they may be able to see the person’s humanity apart from their gender identity, he said.

“Just care about people,” Abla said. “That’s really all there is to it. If you’re a kind person, then you’re sticking up for trans people.”