Arizona Governor Signs Executive Orders Authorizing ‘Gender-Affirming Health Care,’ Restricting ‘Conversion Therapy’
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed two executive orders to ensure sex-change procedures for state employees and to restrict “conversion therapy” as harmful to the health and well-being of LGBT individuals.
“Our LGBT community should never have to face hate and discrimination, and I will do everything in my power to fight for full equality,” Hobbs, a Democrat, wrote in a press release on June 27 announcing her signing both executive orders.
“The state is leading by example on this issue, and we will continue working until Arizona is a place where every individual can participate equally in our economy and our workforce without fear of discrimination or exclusion.”
Executive Order 2023-12 removes an exclusion in the healthcare plan for state employees and retirees. By doing so, it ensures access to “medically necessary gender-affirming health care” for gender dysphoria, or confusion over one’s sexual identity.
The executive order states that gender dysphoria is a recognized diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), saying a “growing body of medical research” shows that discrimination and bias against LGBT individuals cause “lasting physical and psychological harm.”
“Despite a growing body of evidence confirming the importance of gender-affirming care in reducing rates of suicide, substance use, and related disorders, some states [are] attempting to restrict access to gender-affirming care,” the order continues.
‘Medically Necessary Care’
The order further says that “unnecessary and scientifically unsupported restrictions on medically necessary health care” harm Arizonans’ health, safety, and welfare.
Since 2017, Arizona’s state health care plan for employees has excluded coverage for gender reassignment surgery, “even in cases where the surgery is medically necessary,” the executive order states.
It defines medically necessary care as services, supplies, and medicines prescribed by a doctor that are consistent with a patient’s condition showing demonstrated “medical value.”
A lawsuit filed in January 2019 claimed the exclusion violated patients’ civil and constitutional rights.
In Hobbs’s executive order, the exclusion of medically necessary gender-affirming health care was inconsistent with coverage provided by the state’s standard health insurance packages.
“Coverage of gender-affirming care is consistent with the nationwide trend, and there have been successful legal challenges to exclusions of gender-affirming care in public employee health care plans in other states, including Alaska.”
The governor said the removal of the restriction aligns with the values of her administration.
Governor Restricts ‘Conversion Therapy’
Executive Order 2023-13 restricts access to “conversion therapy” in Arizona for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Twenty-five states outlaw conversion therapy, mostly along partisan lines, including the District of Columbia and 100 U.S. municipalities.
Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida—have injunctions pending that seek to block conversion therapy practices in these states.
In a position statement on conversion therapy, the APA reaffirms its recommendation that mental health professionals should refrain from any attempts to change a patient’s sexual orientation and to “respect the identities of those with diverse gender expressions.
“Instead, the APA supports and encourages therapies that affirm sexual orientations and identities.”
In signing the order, Hobbs wrote that “to the greatest extent permissible under law,” state agencies are prohibited from using state or federal resources to promote or support any practice that engages in conversion therapy.
State agencies should instead enact policies “as necessary and consistent with state and federal law, to protect LGBT minors from harmful medical and mental health care serves related to ‘conversion therapy,’”
Hobbs wrote her office is committed to promoting “freedom and self-determination” for LGBT individuals.
On June 9, she vetoed a Republican-sponsored bill prohibiting transgender students from using gender-specific public school restrooms.
In a fund-raising email, Hobbs applauded her record-breaking veto of state GOP-sponsored legislation since she took office in January 2023.
“Countless bills were introduced by extreme Republicans targeting our reproductive freedom, voting rights, LGBT community, and more—so much so that I set a veto record stopping them from becoming law,” Hobbs wrote.
