The Republican-led Arizona legislature has submitted a legislative package to Gov. Katie Hobbs that they say will further strengthen parental rights and protections for children.
Among these bills are HB 2249, which would expand on Arizona’s current parental bill of rights by requiring schools to notify and obtain written consent from parents prior to facilitating a child’s social transition of their biological gender.
Social transitioning includes the usage of preferred pronouns and provision of accommodations that align with the child’s gender identity to include access to nonbiological restrooms and locker rooms.
Additionally, SB 1095 would outlaw gender transition procedure referrals or procedures for minors, and SB 1094 would allow individuals to take a civil cause of action against physicians who perform gender reassignment surgeries on minors.
Arizona banned gender reassignment surgeries on minors in 2022, and excludes gender reassignment procedures from Medicaid coverage. SB 1095 extends that ban to medications, as in puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
Senate Majority Leader John Kavanagh (LD-3), who sponsored SB 1094, said in a press release last week that these latest bills were created in response to requests from parents.
“Arizona families have made clear that they want commonsense protections for children and stronger parental rights,” said Kavanagh. “This legislation ensures that parents remain involved in critical decisions impacting their children while protecting minors from irreversible procedures with lifelong consequences.”
State Sen. Janae Shamp (LD-29), sponsor of SB 1015, said regulation was necessary to ensure accountability for irreversible procedures, and that a lack of regulation would essentially subject children to political experimentation.
“Arizona children are not political experiments, and parents should never be cut out of life-altering decisions involving their own kids,” said Shamp. “For too long, activists have pushed radical gender ideology into medicine, education, and government while silencing common sense and ignoring the concerns of families. These bills draw a clear line.”
GOP lawmakers have had trouble codifying bills addressing the gender transition of minors under Hobbs. In accordance with the stance of the Democratic Party, Hobbs supports gender transitions for minors and typically spurns enacting statutory pressures on this modern social practice.
The governor has consistently vetoed bills which would impose restrictions on individuals who identify as transgender. Last year, Hobbs vetoed bills that would have prohibited amending birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect gender identity rather than biological gender.
Hobbs also issued an executive order her first year in office requiring state employee healthcare plans to cover gender transition surgeries. Every summer since taking office, Hobbs has flown the Pride flag above the American flag in honor of Pride month.
We dropped the Pride banner from the Executive Tower to kick off Pride Month. To our LGBTQ+ community: I will always stand up for your freedom to be who you are, love who you love and your right to live with dignity and respect. pic.twitter.com/ffO9InrjX0
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) June 2, 2026
Hobbs’ husband, Patrick Goodman, was formerly a counselor specializing in youth gender transitions at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.
There’s also been resistance to Arizona regulation on transgenderism from the courts. In 2023, a federal court blocked Republican lawmakers’ attempt at enacting a ban on biological males who identify as females from participating in women’s and girls’ sports, the Save Women’s Sports Act. Petersen v. Doe (formerly Doe v. Horne) is pending petition with the Supreme Court.
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Arizona Senate Republicans advanced legislation last week addressing insurance coverage requirements and the use of taxpayer funds for gender transition procedures.
The legislative package includes Senate Bills 1014 and 1177. The measures passed the Arizona Senate and now move to the House for further consideration.
SB 1014, sponsored by Sen. Janae Shamp (R-LD29), would require health insurers that provide coverage for gender transition procedures to also cover gender detransition procedures. The bill also requires certain healthcare providers who perform transition procedures to provide detransition care and establishes reporting requirements related to those services.
“If insurance companies are going to profit from covering gender transition procedures, they must also take responsibility for the continuum of care – including detransition,” Shamp said in a statement.
“We are hearing more and more stories from individuals who feel misled, who regret these procedures, and who are left without support when they seek to reverse course. That is unacceptable,” she added. “This legislation ensures that patients are not abandoned and that insurers cannot pick and choose coverage based on convenience or ideology. If they’re going to cover the front end, they must cover the consequences on the back end. That’s not just policy – that’s basic fairness and accountability.”
Under the legislation, insurers would be required to submit reports to the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions detailing claims related to detransition procedures, including demographic and procedural information, while prohibiting the disclosure of personally identifiable data.
The proposal also includes provisions requiring state agencies to establish processes that allow individuals undergoing detransition to update official documents reflecting name, sex, or gender changes.
SB 1177, sponsored by Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-LD7), would prohibit the use of public funds for gender transition procedures.
The Senate Republican Caucus stated that both measures are intended to address healthcare policy and insurance practices related to gender transition and detransition services.
The bills are part of a broader set of proposals considered by the Arizona Legislature this session related to gender transition procedures and healthcare policy.
If approved by the House and signed into law, SB 1014 would become effective on January 1, 2027. If signed into law, SB 1177 would take effect on Arizona’s general effective date, typically 90 days after the Legislature adjourns for the session.
Rep. Mary Peltola continues to have support among left-leaning American politicos, after emerging victorious in Alaska’s messy open-primary, ranked-choice general voting system in 2022.
Conservative Alaska voters, faced with a contentious field last year, awarded Peltola enough second-place votes to lock in her win.
As a candidate with low name recognition, Peltola committed to bipartisanship, saying she drew inspiration from the late Congressman Don Young. However, her voting record since November has revealed a different story.
Peltola’s support for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as House speaker, casting 15 votes in his favor, was the first big item that raised eyebrows around the 49th state.
She voted against the Strategic Production Response Act and justified her absence during the final vote by claiming she was unaware voting was about to occur.
Peltola voted against the censure of Rep. Adam Schiff, who was the unethical impeachment manager for Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the now-discredited “Russia collusion” attack on former President Donald Trump.
Recently, she joined most Democrats in opposing the National Defense Authorization Act. The rationale behind her “no” vote lies in her desire for culture-war earmarks to fund military transgender treatments and surgeries, as well as paying military women a month of leave for late-term abortions. Peltola has also supported transgender males’ participation in female athletic competitions.
She voted against H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights, and has been advocating for a national railroad strike, urging Starbucks baristas to unionize, and encouraging pizza workers in Alaska to do the same.
Peltola’s consistent absence is notable: She has missed 16 times more votes than the median Democrat House member. In a House with 435 members, she is number 12 for most missed votes.
While she participated in the women’s Congressional Softball game against journalists, she failed to show up for work the next day when almost all amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act were voted on. Her inability to get out of bed deprives Alaskans of a voice in the House.
When she does vote, Peltola votes in line with Rep. Nancy Pelosi 84% of the time, Rep. Ilhan Omar 77%, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 78%. Keep in mind that 53 percent of Alaskans voted for Trump.
Nick Begich, a lifelong Republican who ran for Congress in 2022, has seen enough. He decided to run again after witnessing Peltola repeatedly vote against Alaska’s values.
Although he faces the challenge of overcoming his relatives, who include well-known Democrats, Begich enjoys the continued support of his followers.
But Alaska’s unique method of selecting representatives, introduced with Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, deviates from the rest of the nation. It’s a tangled mess.
The open primary format eliminated the Republican Party of Alaska’s ability to independently choose its candidate for the general election.
Instead, all candidates, whether clowns or statesmen, participate in the same primary ballot. In 2022, this resulted in a massive ballot with 48 candidates.
The top four vote getters from the primary advance to the general election, where voters are then asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. If a voter’s preferred candidate loses, their vote is transferred to their next choice, granting them an opportunity to vote again. In this scheme, some voters get to vote more than once, while others’ votes are counted just one time.
Given the array of choices Alaskan voters had in November, which included three conservatives and one liberal candidate selected in the primary, it remains perplexing how a radical like Peltola emerged victorious.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting had promised that the system would eliminate extremists, but this is not how it worked in real life. Alaskans ended up with a de facto member of The Squad.
Will it happen again?
Begich begins his campaign with a solid base of one quarter of the likely vote this time around. However, with less than a year remaining until the primary ballot is set in Alaska, a lot can happen with campaign hijinks, as we saw in 2022.
Last year, Begich garnered support from major conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works for America, as well as the endorsement of the Alaska Republican Party.
And yet, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is not structured to work well with the ranked-choice voting system, which in a state like Alaska all but guarantees the presence of multiple Republicans on a general election ballot.
This time around, the NRCC can and should focus on highlighting Peltola’s extreme positions to ensure that Alaskans can make a more informed decision in the upcoming 2024 primary and general elections.
For now, Alaskans are represented by a bait-and-switcher who holds some of the most mind-boggling positions in the history of the U.S. Congress. Alaska has the distinction of being the most conservative district in the country to be represented by a Democrat. We can do better.
National organizations like the NRCC, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and Club for Growth will be crucial in helping prevent a recurrence of 2022’s series of unfortunate events.
What does abortion have to do with the transgender movement? Nothing. But leftist activists are trying to convince us that abortion includes so-called “gender-affirming care.” Planned Parenthood and others have been pushing the message over social media and elsewhere in an effort to get people used to the idea. Why? One reason is that Planned Parenthood admits it is the second largest provider of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in the country. Read their own documentation here. And read these two reports that reveal the lucrative connection between the abortion giant and the transgender movement.
But it is also building their culture of death and destruction. I’m not saying they all see it that way, but pushing for abortion up to birth and the physical and psychological destruction of teens and even pre-teens in the name of “equality” is evil.
Polls show a large percentage of Americans do not support transitioning children with hormones or surgeries. So, leftists are hiding it in ballot measures and writing it into laws. In Ohio (potentially on the 2023 ballot) and Michigan (passed in 2022), the abortion ballot measures are so deceitfully written, it takes an attorney to figure out that both measures would allow abortion up to birth and include sex changes for children without parental consent. Read them here and here.
I will use italics below to indicate the language they use to underhandedly include sex changes, even for minors.
Ohio’s measure uses the term individual to covertly include children, and “reproductive decisions… not limited to … abortion” to covertly include sex-changes. If this was an abortion measure, it would just say that, and it wouldn’t include this kind of language that other states are defining as so-called “gender-affirming care” and courts will look to for direction.
Michigan’s constitutional amendment calls reproductive freedom a right and includes sterilization but is not limited to abortion. It, too, uses the term individual instead of woman or adult to ensure even children can get abortions or sex changes without parental consent.
Ohio’s and Michigan’s measures read a bit like Oregon’s proposed law and Colorado’s recently signed laws. Read here and here to see how the news media are using the Left’s language, and how the definition of reproductive freedom/decisions are being defined to include so-called “gender-affirming care.”
In very progressive states like New York, the abortion industry can get away with spelling it out in plain language, “… rights to an individual based on their ‘pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” It includes ethnicity, disability, age, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” The key words here say it all and will be used to set a standard for defining “reproductive healthcare/freedom” or “reproductive decision” throughout the country.
Maryland, same thing. The measure uses “reproductive freedom” instead of abortion, not just to make it sound better to voters, but so they can include sex changes. It calls “reproductive freedom” a fundamental right and says that right includes ending a pregnancy but is not limited to abortion. It goes on to ensure individuals (not just adults) have a right to reproductive liberty. So, although Maryland didn’t write it out as blatantly as New York, the language it did use allows the same thing: abortion to birth and sex changes, even for children.
Also, in states that are moderate or conservative, the abortion industry includes a limitation to abortion, but then takes it all back with near universal exemptions. More on that below.
So, when you see “reproductive healthcare/freedom/liberty,” “autonomy,” “reproductive decisions,” or “not limited to…” think sex-change drugs and surgeries. Because that’s how the courts will read it.
If the language uses “individual” or “person,” think no age limit; it includes children at any age for both abortion and sex changes.
If the abortion language sets a limit at viability or some other gestational age, check the exceptions! These ballot measures include exceptions for the “health of the mother.” Courts have interpreted that phrase to include emotional or mental health, and thereby allow abortions at any stage if the woman simply feels distressed. This has always been understood to mean no limits up to birth if the woman wants it, and the abortionist (self-servingly) signs off.
It’s there, but it takes a skilled attorney to connect the dots. The abortion industry knows most Americans do not support sex-change surgeries in state law, especially for children. And most Americans also do not support abortion up to birth. The industry knows these facts—that is exactly why they use crafty language to hide such extreme policies under vague wording and then redefine that language elsewhere.
One more thing: They will always cloak the measure in the nicest title:
“The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety”
“Equal Protection of Law Amendment”
“Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment”
Cathi Herrod is the president of Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), a nonprofit advocacy organization committed to promoting and defending the foundational principles of life, marriage and family, and religious freedom.
Phoenix Children’s Hospital has now confirmed on a Twitter feed that their standard treatment for gender dysphoria is “gender-affirming care.” This is strictly bad news for Arizona’s troubled or gender-curious adolescents.
The wildly expanding world of transgender services has generated its own euphemisms, so a translation is in order. “Gender-affirming care” means that when any adolescent professes doubt or confusion about their gender, the only acceptable response is to agree that the child’s feelings are reality-based and immutable. Therefore, they must be encouraged to advance into treatment (more on that later).
Critics of this approach, even those simply urging caution, are ridiculed and threatened with professional sanctions.
Teenage females are the largest and fastest growing demographic for “transitioning.” Yet anyone who has raised, lived with, or been a teenage girl knows that they’re notoriously subject to mood swings and temporary infatuations.
Many adolescents today live in an Internet/social milieu that works to encourage transgenderism. Internet quizzes ask “Are you sure” you’re not trans.
Coming out as trans is seen as courageous. It is rewarded with admiration and respect. It can be seductive for teens with self-esteem issues and limited ability to foresee long-term consequences.
But the gender-affirming care model is unique in believing the feelings of a teenager alone justify life-altering medical and surgical treatments. There are no tests of any kind available to confirm or deny the diagnosis. According to this model, if the youngster reports they feel like the other sex, then they are transsexual. Period.
Gender dysphoria, feeling psychological discomfort with your biological sex, clearly exists. Some transgendered adults who made the considered decision to transform once maturity had been reached are living productive, satisfying lives.
Rare individuals who have been clearly gender dysphoric from birth seem to have a legitimate if ill-defined psychological disorder which can be ameliorated by passing as the opposite sex.
But these examples have no relation to the waves of transgendered teens now occurring. In her meticulously researched book “Irreversible Damage,” Abigail Shrier recounts interviewing hundreds of parents with essentially the same story.
They thought they were raising a bright, well-adjusted daughter with normal emotional riffs. Then, suddenly, supported by her authority figures, she comes out as “trans.”
By the time they realize what happened, the deed is done, often medications have been prescribed, and the parents are out of the decision-making loop. If they don’t fully cooperate, they can lose custody of their child.
The result of this approach has been a huge leap in the incidence of transsexualism. Until recently, about 0.3% of Americans identified as transgender. Among today’s youth, that number is 1.8% and climbing.
In 2007 there was one American “comprehensive pediatric gender clinic.” Now there are 60.
It’s not logically possible that an identifiable, biologically-based condition would undergo such an enormous increase spontaneously. Yet patients continue to pour in from school clinics and pediatricians’ offices.
But what about those treatments? Once on the track, younger patients (i.e., some grade schoolers) are given puberty blockers which delay the effects of sex hormones, essentially causing an arrested development.
Later in high school, patients are given the hormones of the opposite gender—most commonly testosterone for girls, followed by mastectomy and other surgeries to remove unwanted organs, implant facsimile organs, and produce desired cosmetic results.
These ministrations are depicted as benign and reversible, but they are neither. At a minimum, they permanently terminate key functions like fertility and breast-feeding. Complications of organ transplants like the phallus can produce grotesque results. The medical ethics of sacrificing a body function for aesthetic or psychological purposes is questionable at best.
The human toll of this departure from normal scientific standards of care is now coming into view. According to a 2022 study by the National Institutes of Health called “Suicidality Among Transgender Youth,” “56% of transgender youth reported a previous suicide attempt and 86% reported suicidal thoughts.”
We are in the throes of an epidemic, not a viral but a social one. PCH and the other group-thinking experts serve us poorly by promoting this faddish, non-medical behavior. They should review the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
