JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Transgender minors in Missouri no longer will have access to puberty blockers, hormones or gender transition surgery under legislation passed by the Republican-led legislature Wednesday.

Lawmakers also sent the Republican governor legislation to ban transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams from kindergarten through college, both at public and private schools. The law would expire in 2027.

What You Need To Know

  • Missouri lawmakers passed a bill banning transgender health care for minors. The bill bans access to puberty blockers, hormones or gender transition surgery

  • Missouri lawmakers also passed a bill to ban transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams from kindergarten through college, both at public and private schools
  • Missouri Gov. Parson is expected to sign the bills

The ban on gender transition care also affects some adults — Medicaid health care won’t cover any gender-transition care in the state, and surgery will no longer be available to prisoners and inmates.

Gov. Mike Parson is expected to sign it — he threatened to keep lawmakers working beyond the normal end of their session if they didn’t approve the ban. Once signed, it would take effect Aug. 28 and expire in August 2027. The ban includes exceptions for minors already getting such treatments.

Missouri’s ban comes amid a national push by conservatives to put restrictions on transgender and non-binary people that has become, alongside abortion, a major theme running through legislative sessions across the country in 2023.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones released a statement after the bill's passage, saying the city stands in solidarity with those fighting for the right to live freely, regardless fo their gender identity or expression. 

"Transgender Missourians deserve to live their authentic lives. The anti-trans bills passed by the Missouri Legislature are ugly, hateful attacks on our youth that will drive them and their families out of our state in search of a more welcoming place to live," commented Mayor Jones.

In Kansas City, the city council will consider a resolution Wednesday to designate the city as a sanctuary for people seeing of providing gender transition care. 

Earlier this year, Missouri’s legislative leaders vowed to stop minors from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. And Missouri’s Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, took up the charge after Parson appointed him to fill the vacant position in January.

Bailey, now campaigning to keep the job in 2024, launched an investigation in February into St. Louis’ Washington University Transgender Center following a former staffer’s complaints that doctors were prescribing hormones too quickly and without enough mental health wraparound services. An internal Washington University review found no malpractice.

Bailey has since expanded his investigation to any clinic offering pediatric gender-transition care in Missouri, and demanded records from a St. Louis Planned Parenthood where doctors provide such health care.

In April, Bailey took the novel step of imposing restrictions on adults as well as children under Missouri’s consumer-protection law. A judge temporarily blocked the limits from taking effect as she considers a legal challenge.

Under Bailey’s rules, before gender-transition medical treatments can be provided by physicians, people would have to demonstrate that they experienced an “intense pattern” of documented gender dysphoria for three years. They’d also need at least 15 hourly sessions with a therapist over at least 18 months. Patients would have to be screened for autism and “social media addiction,” and any psychiatric symptoms from mental health issues would have to be treated and resolved.

Bailey’s rule says some patients could maintain their prescriptions as long as they promptly receive the required assessments.