The state Senate has approved a bill protecting Virginia doctors who administer gender-affirming care. But the bill still may face a veto from the governor.
Doctors and nurses across Virginia are increasingly in the spotlight for providing gender-affirming care, and now Senate Democrats say they need protection from extradition to states where that's illegal. A bill aimed at doing just that was introduced by Senator Ghazala Hashmi, a Democrat from Richmond.
"We are increasingly seeing, all across the country, efforts to criminalize the work of our medical community," Hashmi explains. "Just last week, we found out that a physician in New York was charged by Louisiana for having prescribed medical care to a resident of Louisiana."
Senator Mark Peake is a Republican from Lynchburg who says this bill is an overreach.
"What this bill proposes doing is having a Virginia doctor treat someone in another state and then trying to exempt that doctor from the laws of the other state," Peake says. "We can't do that."
Senate Democrats say yes they can, and then they sent the bill on to the House on a party line vote. But their victory may prove short-lived; Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin will have the power to veto the bill if it gets to his desk.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.