Gov. Walz signs order making state a sanctuary for ‘gender transitions’

Despite Walz’s claims to be protecting medical care, evidence shows that gender transitions are deeply harmful.

transitions
Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday making the North Star State a sanctuary for gender transitions, including for residents of other states with more conservative laws. (Office of Gov. Tim Walz/Flickr)

(LifeSiteNews) – Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday making the North Star State a sanctuary for gender transitions, including for residents of other states with more conservative laws.

Fox affiliate KMSP reports that under Executive Order 23-03, state agencies are to coordinate to preserve transition “access” and investigate and punish “unfair or deceptive practices related to the denial of gender-affirming health care services”; MDH will compile scientific literature presenting transitions as safe, effective, and beneficial to public health; the state will refuse to assist other states that act against the transition industry, including not extraditing individuals accused of transition-related activities that are illegal in other states; and state agencies will “issue a joint bulletin to health plan companies regarding the availability of health insurance coverage and the provision of health insurance benefits for medically necessary gender-affirming health care services.”

“As states across the country move to ban access to gender-affirming care, we want LGBTQ Minnesotans to know they will continue to be safe, protected, and welcome in Minnesota,” Walz declared Wednesday. “In Minnesota, you will not be punished for seeking or providing medical care. This executive order delivers the urgent action that our LGBTQ Minnesotans deserve.”

Elements of the order echo HF 146, a bill proposed in January which would forbid state officials from cooperating with “subpoenas to gather information for out-of-state laws interfering in the use of gender-affirming health care.”

But despite Walz’s claims to be protecting medical care, evidence shows that gender transitions are deeply harmful.

Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

On top of those issues, experts outside the medical establishment further warn that surgically or chemically reinforcing gender confusion imposes irreversible harm on children such as infertility, impairment of adult sexual function, and reduced life expectancy, as well as the psychological toll of being “locked into” physical alterations regardless of whether they change their minds when they mature, as attested to by many individuals who “detransitioned” back to their true sex.

The issue is grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.

 

Calvin Freiburger