DIGEST
The digest printed below was prepared by House Legislative Services. It constitutes no part of the
legislative instrument. The keyword, one-liner, abstract, and digest do not constitute part of the law
or proof or indicia of legislative intent. [R.S. 1:13(B) and 24:177(E)]
HB 575 Original 2021 Regular Session Firment
Abstract: Prohibits the prescribing and dispensing of drugs to a minor which may alter his puberty.
Proposed law creates the "Vulnerable Child Protection Act".
Proposed law provides definitions that shall be used throughout proposed law.
Proposed law provides that no person shall engage in, counsel, refer, or cause any practice to be
performed upon a minor if the practice is performed for the purpose of altering the appearance or
affirm a minor's gender or sex because perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex. The practices
not to be performed shall include the following:
(1)Prescribing, dispensing, administering, or otherwise supplying a puberty blocker medication
to stop or delay normal puberty.
(2) Prescribing, dispensing, administering, or otherwise supplying supraphysiologic doses of
testosterone or other androgens to females.
(3) Prescribing, dispensing, administering, or otherwise supplying supraphysiologic doses of
estrogen to males.
(4) Performing a surgery that sterilizes an individual by performing either castration, vasectomy,
hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, or penectomy.
(5) Performing a surgery that artificially constructs tissue with the appearance of genitalia that
differs from the individual's sex to include metoidioplasty, phalioplasty, or vaginoplasty.
(6) Removing any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.
Proposed law stipulates that the provisions of proposed law shall not apply to a procedure to treat
a minor who is born with a medically verifiable disorder of sexual development which shall include
the following instances:
(1) A minor who is born with external biological sex characteristics that are ambiguous and the
ambiguity is not resolvable.
(2)A minor who is born with either forty-six XX chromosomes with virilization, forty-six XY chromosomes with undervirilization, or having both ovarian and testicular tissue.
(3) A minor who has been diagnosed by a physician as having a disorder of sexual development
which the physician has determined through genetic or biochemical testing that the person
does not have either a normal sex chromosome structure, sex steroid hormone production,
or sex steroid hormone action for a male or female.
Proposed law prohibits a nurse, counselor, teacher, principal, or other administrative personnel at
a public or private school from doing any of the following to a minor:
(1) Encouraging or coercing a minor to withhold from his parent or legal guardian any
information that suggest the minor's perception of the minor's gender or sex is inconsistent
with the minor's sex.
(2) Withholding from a minor's parent or legal guardian information related to a minor's gender
or sex that is inconsistent with the minor's sex.
Nothing in proposed law should alter the standard of care as provided for in present law for a
healthcare provider who provides care to his patient. Proposed law provides that any person who violates proposed law may, upon criminal conviction,
be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, and may be fined not more
than $10,000.
(Adds R.S. 40:1091.1-1091.5)