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The General Law Committee introduced SB 227, An Act Concerning Prescription Drugs and Over-The-Counter Diet Pills And Supplements, on February 18th.
The bill is intended to "prohibit marketing of certain weight loss pills and supplements to minors" and also to "enact legal and privacy protections for prescribers of prescription drugs for reproductive and gender-affirming health care."
Leave it to Connecticut politicians to tie together diet pills, medication abortion and gender-affirming care into a single bill, shielding prescribers of such medications.
The bill has already drawn testimony from more than 50 individuals and organizations.
State Comptroller Sean Scanlon supports the bill, and wants Connecticut to "remain a leader in healthcare by shielding licensed providers" of "lawful, evidence-based" care in Connecticut, including gender affirming care.
Attorney General William Tong claims the provisions are important "because the Trump administration as well as anti-abortion and anti-transgender health care states continue to attack providers who support patients seeking access to health care that is safe and legal in Connecticut."
The Connecticut State Medical Society loves the bill, and wants to keep on protecting gender affirming care and those who provide the services.
The same with GLAD Law, an LGBTQ+ focused legal group; Matt Blinstribas, Executive Director of Equality Connecticut; Liz Gustafson from Reproductive Equity Now; and Jess Zaccagnino, the policy counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.
Dr. Lisa Perriera, the Medical Director for The Women’s Centers (a group of independent clinics with locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut), strongly supports the bill and how it safeguards providers. She, too, wants Connecticut to continue to be a leader in transgender health care.
Lisa Thomas, from the State Comptroller’s Healthcare Cabinet, urged lawmakers to pass the bill, and seemed to suggest that doing so is part of "key recommendations intended to advance equity... and create sustainable, long-term opportunities for women and children."
Dr. Cara Delaney, an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UConn, strongly supports the bill, and is upset about "restrictive states" attacking, criminalizing and punishing health care providers who abort babies and transition gender dysphoric folks.
She also seems to think that gender affirming care medications are safe... which means she must have avoided reading the Cass Report, and other studies reporting bone density loss and fertility and reproductive risks.
Another OB-GYN, Dr. Iyanna Liles from Women's Health Connecticut, boasted about Connecticut's "opportunity and responsibility to protect its providers who can provide medication abortion and medically necessary care for transgender people in the state and through telemedicine if needed."
A number of individuals tied to Unitarian Universalist churches wrote in strong support of the bill.
Bryan T. Cafferelli, Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Protection, expressed significant concerns with the bill as drafted, but those concerns appear to be tied to carding procedures to ensure that "patrons are not presenting fake identification."
Linda Palumbo, a retired attorney and the mother of a trans-identified child, wrote in opposition to the bill.
"Medical professionals who participate in "gender medicine" expose their patients to serious physical and mental harm," wrote Palumbo. "To shield this conduct is inconsistent with the State's role as protector of its citizenry."
The Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference (CCPAC) opposed the bill, and pointed out that "the use of telemedicine for the provision of abortion pills or gender-affirming care medications is open to abuse, especially when minors are involved."
"In the area of expanding protections for providers of gender-affirming care for minors, which this bill would do, the legislature would be ignoring the fact that medical research concerning gender-affirming care is rapidly changing," wrote CCPAC. "Numerous current studies are now revealing that the use of hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries have failed to aid minors suffering from gender dysphoria."
Leslie Wolfgang from the Family Institute of Connecticut also pointed out that "gender affirming care is not settled science" and reminded that "lawsuits and malpractice claims are increasing" over transgender health care.
"The pairing of anorexia and gender dysphoria in this bill is striking—and instructive," explained Wolfgang. "Both conditions involve profound distress related to a young person’s perception of their body. In both cases, parents and caring adults often feel confused and helpless as they watch a child struggle with mental anguish over an otherwise healthy body. Yet our response to these two conditions is dramatically different."
"In the case of anorexia, we do not affirm a young girl’s belief that she is overweight when she is not. We do not validate the distortion," wrote Wolfgang. "Instead, we compassionately assure her that her perception is mistaken and help her learn to accept and care for her body."
"But in the case of gender dysphoria, the current medical approach often does the opposite," lamented Wolfgang. "Doctors may affirm a child’s belief that they are “born in the wrong body” and propose blocking natural puberty, prescribing lifelong synthetic hormones, causing infertility, or performing irreversible surgeries—all under the banner of 'gender affirming care'."
She wondered why Connecticut seems to be doubling down on gender affirming care, while the rest of the country and world, for that matter, is abandoning the harmful, pseudoscientific practice.
Even the American Association of Plastic Surgeons formally rejected surgical interventions for minors with gender dysphoria.
"Connecticut should not provide special protection to controversial and irreversible medical interventions—particularly when other states or federal entities have deemed those interventions unlawful," concluded Wolfgang.
She's got a valid point, of course.
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