A soft-spoken Republican state lawmaker in Louisiana shot down a bill that would ban affirming healthcare for transgender youth in the state, the sole southern state that has not outlawed gender-affirming care amid a wave of restrictive measures targeting LGBT+ people across the country.
State Senator Fred Mills, the chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, cast the committee’s tie-breaking 5-4 vote to block the bill’s progress in the GOP-dominated state legislature on 23 May.
