Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has issued an emergency regulation clarifying that gender transition interventions are considered “experimental” and prohibited by existing Missouri laws governing unfair, deceptive, and unconscionable business practices, including in administering healthcare services.
The announcement came amid concerns in the medical community about the lack of clinical evidence of the safety or success of these procedures.
“As Attorney General, I will protect children and enforce the laws as written, which includes upholding state law on experimental gender transition interventions,” said Attorney General Bailey. “Even Europe recognizes that mutilating children for the sake of a woke, leftist agenda has irreversible consequences, and countries like Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom have all sharply curtailed these procedures.”
The emergency regulation forbids the performance of experimental procedures in the absence of specific guardrails.
For gender transition interventions, those guardrails must include specific informed-consent disclosures informing patients that the use of puberty blocker drugs or cross-sex hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria is experimental and not approved by the FDA.
The regulation also requires providers to ensure that the patient has received a full psychological or psychiatric assessment, consisting of not fewer than 15 separate, hourly sessions over the course of not fewer than 18 months.
Moreover, the regulation mandates that any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved, requiring providers to track all adverse effects that arise from any gender transition intervention.
This applies to all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years.
Providers must also obtain and keep on file informed written consent and ensure that the patient has received a comprehensive screening to determine whether the patient has autism.
AG Bailey’s emergency regulation will last 30 legislative days or 180 days, whichever is longer, once it is issued.
