Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’d "for sure" sign legislation banning transgender surgeries for minors.
In an interview with the Daily Caller posted Thursday, DeSantis said he was "very much opposed to chemical castration of minors, I honestly didn’t know this existed until a few years ago."
"That would be something I would sign for sure," he said.
Legislation to ban transgender surgeries and procedures for children failed to come to a vote and died in a subcommittee April 30 in Florida, the news outlet reported.
DeSantis last week signed legislation that bars transgender athletes in public schools from women’s sports — and blasted some corporations that have backed more liberal policies and states that hand over "the reigns of government to them," allowing them to "set the policy."
"That ain’t happening in Florida," he vowed.
In April, Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender youth after the state legislature overrode a veto by GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Hutchinson had argued the measure gave the state too much power over the decisions made by trans youth, their families, and their doctors. The law bans medical and surgical treatments aiming to add, remove, or alter a young person's physical attributes for their "biological sex" as determined at birth.
Alabama lawmakers, however, ended their legislative session without a vote on one of the most controversial bills before them: a measure to outlaw gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender minors, Epoch News reported.
The demise of the bill was a victory for advocacy groups and transgender youth and their parents, who held rallies outside the Alabama Statehouse to oppose the bill, CBS News noted.
A number of bills on transgender athletes have been proposed or passed across the nation, largely in GOP-controlled states, including Tennessee and Mississippi.
In March, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, signed an executive order essentially requiring that only girls play in girls sports.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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