Georgia senators have proposed legislation that would prohibit the state prison system from providing medically necessary gender-affirming treatment to people in custody. This would include cutting off prescribed hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) for anyone already receiving it.
Senate Bill 185 was introduced February 18 by no fewer than 21 Republican sponsors, and on February 26 received a favorable report from the Committee on Public Safety. The bill will next be reviewed by the full Senate. Republicans have a trifecta in the state, controlling both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office.
SB 185 would prohibit use of state funds to provide anyone in the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) prison system, including state prisoners being housed in county jails, with the following treatments:
(A) Sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics;
(B) Hormone replacement therapies; and
(C) Cosmetic procedures or prosthetics intended to alter the appearance of primary or secondary sexual characteristics.
Short-term HRT could still be prescribed to patients currently receiving it, but only for the explicit purpose of tapering them off. Essentially, the legislation would compel GDC to begin medically detransitioning anyone receiving any form of gender-affirming health care, despite seeming to acknowledge that care as medically necessary. Among its limited exemptions:
Treatments for medical conditions where such treatments are considered medically necessary, provided that such condition is not gender dysphoria or the purpose of such treatment is not for sex reassignment.
“GDC has a well-established history of violating human rights,” State Representative Park Cannon (D–Atlanta) testified at a Committee on Public Safety hearing February 25. “The last thing we need to do is legislate away health care for these vulnerable folks in Georgia prisons. Being without care in the prison system is a reality that many are facing right now. And I do believe that this bill, if it becomes law, will face legal challenges.”
“[Denying prisoners] access to essential medical care is not only inhumane, but also a violation of their constitutional rights.”
One of the legal precedents Cannon cited was my own. I filed Lynch v. Lewis in 2015, after three years of incarceration. Prior to my arrest at age 19 I’d been hustling up access to non-prescribed HRT for about four years, and continued to do so inside GDC. But as I began to fight for legal access, I faced only resistance from GDC and anyone else in a position of authority. Over the next decade and an additional five lawsuits filed before I paroled out in 2023, that never changed.
“This bill exposes the state to costly litigation and undermines the dignity of incarcerated individuals,” Rep. Cannon told Filter. “[Denying] access to essential medical care is not only inhumane, but also a violation of their constitutional rights.”
When introducing Cannon, Committee on Public Safety Chairman John Albers (R) remarked that in 15 years this was the first time he’d had a House representative testify at a Senate hearing.
Cannon, one of only two openly LGBTQ+ members of the Georgia General Assembly, told Filter that GOP leaders don’t make it easy to do so. Senate hearings are scheduled on short notice, rooms double-booked and sign-up sheets guarded “until the last minute.” But as a minority-party House representative she’s found it necessary to begin attending critical hearings whenever she can, even those in the Senate.
“Typically members wait for proposed legislation to come to the chamber in which they serve, but the urgency is such that I cannot wait,” she said. “The cards are stacked so that the GOP make the schedules for the committees … and so it was highly likely that when the bill comes to the House side it would be in its original terrible state. So the goal is to legislatively get ahead of the process.”
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