‘Parents’ rights’ law penalizes anyone ‘recruiting’ a child to receive gender-affirming care without parental consent

Just days after the Tennessee state legislature passed a bill to allow teachers to carry concealed firearms in schools without notifying parents, the same GOP-controlled body of lawmakers passed legislation that would penalize adults for helping a minor receive gender-affirming medical care without parental consent.

Although the bill’s original text made assistance a crime, the final text adopted Thursday creates a civil cause of action against any person who “knowingly removes a minor from this state without the consent of a parent of the minor for the purpose of assisting the minor in obtaining a healthcare procedure that is for the purpose of enabling the minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex or treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”