Column: A law would criminalize care for transgender kids in Idaho — and outside Idaho - Yahoo Finance

You have to hand it to Idaho lawmakers. In a season in which red-state politicians are battling each other in the competition for who can produce the most extreme anti-transgender policies, the Boise Legislature is poised to take home the trophy.

The Idaho House on Tuesday passed a measure that criminalizes gender-affirming therapies for children under 18, ranging from hormone and puberty-delaying treatments to surgery.

These treatments would be felonies subject to penalties of up to life in prison. Idaho's real breakthrough, however, is that the crimes would also include arranging for such treatment out of state.

Melissa K. Holt, Boston University

In other words, you can be persecuted in the state, and persecuted for leaving the state.

"Move-away" laws aren't entirely unknown, but they typically apply to custody orders or agreements that limit the ability of one parent to move a child to a different state or abroad.

It appears that no such law allowing states or citizens to reach across boundaries to enforce a state law without an extradition procedure has been enacted in the U.S. since the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, one of the most detested statutes ever passed by Congress. For a state to interfere with the free movement of residents across its borders looks flagrantly unconstitutional.

"I think this would violate the right to travel," Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar, told me. He warns that some states may take a similar approach by prohibiting women from traveling out of state to get an abortion — indeed, just such a proposal has surfaced in the Missouri Legislature.

Idaho House Bill 675 is now in the hands of the Idaho Senate. The measure takes its place with more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills under consideration by state legislators across the country, according to a reckoning by the Human Rights Campaign, a watchdog for LGBTQ+ rights.

source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/column-law-criminalize-care-transgender-212838706.html

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