Newsletter Signup
Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com
Somerville City Council to consider legal protections for trans healthcare
The ordinance would protect transgender people seeking gender-affirming healthcare in Massachusetts.
A proposed ordinance and draft resolution that would prohibit Somerville’s police force from helping out-of-state police forces pursue transgender people seeking gender-affirming healthcare in Massachusetts will go before the City Council Thursday night, The Boston Herald reported Wednesday.
Somerville City Councilor-at-large Willie Burnley Jr. told the newspaper he is proposing the ordinance and resolution in response to legislatures in states such as Arizona, Tennessee, and Arkansas considering laws that would criminalize gender-affirming healthcare.
In Arizona, a law was signed by the state’s governor in March that prohibits doctors from providing “irreversible sex reassignment surgery” to anyone under 18.
In Tennessee, a bill is being considered that would prohibit doctors from performing gender-affirming surgeries, as well as prescribing hormone therapies.
Local
In Arkansas, the state’s legislature overrode a veto from its governor last year to enact a ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapies for minors. The law was halted from going into effect a few months later.
Advertisement:
Burnley, whose ordinance is co-sponsored by City Councilor-at-large Charlotte Kelly, told the Herald he wants Somerville to lead the fight against such laws.
The ordinance would make it illegal for Somerville police officers to comply with any out-of-state requests for investigations, arrests, detaining, or information-sharing on the basis of someone having received or facilitated gender-affirming healthcare, the Herald reported.
The city’s legal department told the newspaper it believes the ordinance is legally defensible.
The ordinance will be discussed when Somerville City Council meets at 7 p.m.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com