Tennessee’s Senate on Monday passed an amended measure that would require health care providers and insurers to report transgender-related care to the state, setting up a reconciliation vote in the House, the Associated Press reported. Lawmakers debated the proposal after about two dozen activists gathered outside the chamber and sang slogans including “Equal protection is the law of this land,” according to the report.
Opponents said the bill would effectively “dox’” transgender people or other non-cisgender people, even as the bill’s data reporting would go to the state in aggregate rather than be tied to individuals. Dahron Annelise Johnson, co-chair of the Nashville Committee of the Tennessee Equality Project, said the measure would collect details about prescriptions and what is discussed during medical visits, as well as how long someone has been in treatment or having gender care discussions with their providers.
Johnson said the bill is “inherently problematic” even if it does not track individual details. She also criticized what she described as the bill’s focus on non-cisgender patients while noting that some cisgender patients also may receive similar treatments, including taking hormone supplements such as testosterone and estrogen for different conditions.
The bill’s language, as described in the Associated Press account, would require tracking gender transition and detransition treatments, including mental health treatment, medical interventions, and surgeries that stop, reverse, or help an individual cope with the effects of a gender transition procedure due to the resolution of any inconsistency between an individual’s sex and their perceived sex or perceived gender.
Sponsors Sen. Brent Taylor and Rep. Jeremy Faison said the bill is intended to provide public transparency into the number of trans patients who choose to detransition, address what they characterized as “one-way transitioning,” and ensure patients can receive care if they choose to detransition. Taylor also said he was responding to concerns that people were being pushed into a decision they later wanted to reverse, framing the bill as a choice-based policy.
During the floor debate, senators approved two amendments, including one to allow the attorney general to investigate people who do not comply and another to remove county-level data from the required report. Taylor said the county-removal amendment was inspired by conversations with protesters concerned about potential HIPAA rights implications in lower-population counties.
The report said protesters described the county-level change as a small victory but argued the bill still fits into an effort to intimidate the trans community and move toward more restrictive policies in future sessions. Despite that, Taylor criticized protesters’ approach, saying they should engage with lawmakers rather than “immediately screaming at us when we walk in the chamber,” which he said included accusations of fascism.
After more than half an hour of debate, the Senate passed the bill 24 to 7, with every Democrat and Sen. John Stevens voting against, according to the Associated Press. Democrats criticized the measure, including Sen. Raumesh Akbari, who said it was unfair to legislate in a way that would allow or ban localities from banning conversion therapy, while citing evidence about the dangers of conversion therapy and arguing the policy could push vulnerable people toward self-harm.
Akbari said her argument faced an uphill battle following a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this month ruling states cannot ban conversion therapy because the bans violate the First Amendment. She argued that the state still should not pass policies that could push vulnerable people toward self-harm as they work through gender identity, and she called the care at issue “life-affirming care.”