Maryland lawmakers want to extend legal protections for healthcare workers providing abortions to those who are giving gender affirming care in a new bill.
The legislation keeps other states from challenging medical licenses, taking legal action against providers. It also keeps other states from requiring providers to hand over medical records of people who receive care from out of state.
“Over 20 states banned gender affirming care,” said Sen. Clarence Lam during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday. “Just like many of the bans on abortion, and other reproductive health services, many of these bans are structured in ways that could be used to harass gender affirming care patients in Maryland, or to go after the licenses of other providers.”
Maryland currently has an executive order in place that already protects providers giving gender affirming care, but that order could change depending on who is governor. The law would codify the protections.
Many transgender people have felt threatened by actions taken by attorneys general in states like Texas.
Texas’s top lawyer Ken Paxton recently asked providers in Georgia to turn over medical records of Texas transgender youth who received care in Georgia.
“Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently had to turn over a significant number of medical records to the Tennessee Attorney General, including records of family members of patients receiving gender affirming care. The Missouri Attorney General's demanding records from a gender affirming care provider in their state,” Lam said.
According to the Williams Institute, a think tank focused on sexual orientation and gender, there are about 32,000 transgender people living in Maryland.