Vice President Harris gives green light to law allowing states to strip parents who oppose gender reassignment surgery of their children

Vice President Kamala Harris' newly announced running mate, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, signed a bill in April 2023 that would allow the state to decide custody if a child is denied access to gender reassignment surgery.

The Trans Refuge Bill provides “temporary emergency jurisdiction” if a parent refuses to allow their child to transition, the bill says. The bill defines the procedures, which include gender reassignment, hormone replacement and cosmetic surgery, as “medically necessary” as long as they “respect the patient's gender identity as experienced and defined by the child.” (RELATED: Harris once boasted about working 'behind the scenes' to facilitate gender reassignment surgery for transgender inmates)

“Hate has no home in this state,” Walz said at the signing of the law. “In this state, we preach love and acceptance.”

After former President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the race on July 21, Harris quickly became the presumptive nominee with the backing of many prominent party leaders. Harris chose Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, less than 100 days before the November election.

Tim Walz signed a law making Minnesota a “trans refugee state.”

No age limits for minors who could receive “gender-affirming care.”

Really radical.

pic.twitter.com/NrE6Vkhgw9

— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) August 6, 2024

The bill amends “custody and child welfare provisions” that reference other states’ laws and would conflict with Minnesota’s “gender-affirming health care” laws.

Minnesota's bill created a loophole that allowed people, including children, from other states to receive transgender treatments and specified that other states' provisions that “impede” access to these procedures “shall not be enforced or applied within the state.” At the same time, Minnesota's law grants the state “temporary emergency jurisdiction” to make a custody decision if the child “could not receive” these transgender treatments.

The bill defines transgender treatments for children as “medically necessary” physical or mental health care that “respects the patient's gender identity as experienced and defined by the patient.” This includes interventions that “suppress” the development of their biological sex, such as hormone therapies, as well as procedures that “align” the patient's physical body with their “gender identity” through cosmetic and sex reassignment surgery.

Democratic Rep. Leigh Finke, Minnesota's first openly transgender lawmaker, praised the bill for being on the “right side of history” and praised the law as part of his “wonderfully quirky, diverse and fabulous queer agenda,” according to a press release.

“Our wonderfully strange, diverse and fabulous queer agenda is to continue to show up in places designed to exclude us, and we will continue to be joyful,” Finke said in the press release. “Our joy is an act of resistance and we will not rest until all of our liberation efforts succeed.”

Walz's office did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment.

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