West Plains, MO. – Pride Month comes to an end on June 30 and two new laws were signed into law by Missouri Governor Mike Parson dealing with transgender minors and adults earlier in the month, News Team 7 sought to find out how those affected reacted.
While many conservatives applaud the action, members of the local LGBTQ+ community are fearful of what this may mean for the future. To find out how this minority feels about these new laws, News Team 7 spoke with Cammie Storms, a local trans woman:
Senate bill 49 will affect many low-income members of the trans community by blocking MO HealthNet from covering hormone treatments, surgeries, and puberty blockers. Storms was worried this could effect her medication, saying “it gave a good scare on weather or not I was going to be able keep taking my medicines.” She was worried she was going to have to make an emergency move out of state. Some families with trans members have already made the decision to leave the state they were born and raised in according to an article by Missouri Independent.
Storms said she may have to switch medications, from a patch to a pill form. While estrogen supplements all carry some risk for blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes for both trans and cis women, the pill form does carry a higher risk of blood pressure related illness, especially for those who smoke or are over 35 (source).
Storms mentioned that she had mailed the local state representatives and senators about these bills but had never gotten a response back. The two state senators serving the News Team 7 area, Karla Eslinger and Jason Bean, as well as the multiple representatives voted in favor of both bills.
News Team 7 reached out to Sen. Eslinger’s office for comment on this story but hadn’t received a reply by the time of publishing this article. In a previous public statement, Sen. Eslinger said on SB 39 that “It would not be fair to let boys go head-to-head against girls, due to the obvious physical advantage the male athlete enjoys. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when a transgender female participates in school sports intended for biological females.”
One study in Brazil found that transgender women’s strength were higher than that of cisgender women after a year of hormone therapy but the project did not include athletes. A 2015 study of eight trans women athletes suggested there was no advantage over cisgender women.
