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Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 43. PROFESSIONS AND BUSINESSES · Chapter 34. PHYSICIANS, ACUPUNCTURE, PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS, CANCER AND GLAUCOMA TREATMENT, RESPIRATORY CARE, CLINICAL PERFUSIONISTS, AND ORTHOTICS AND PROSTHETICS PRACTICE · Article 1. GEORGIA COMPOSITE MEDICAL BOARD

43-34-15. Prohibition on certain therapies and procedures for treatment of gender dysphoria in minors; regulations; exceptions; accountability.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

  1. (a)

    Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this Code section, the following irreversible procedures and therapies performed on a minor for the treatment of gender dysphoria are prohibited in this state:#

    1. (1)

      Sex reassignment surgeries, or any other surgical procedures, that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics; and#

    2. (2)

      Hormone replacement therapies.#

  2. (b)

    The board shall adopt rules and regulations regarding the prohibitions contained in subsection (a) of this Code section, which shall contain limited exceptions for:#

    1. (1)

      Treatments for medical conditions other than gender dysphoria or for the purpose of sex reassignment where such treatments are deemed medically necessary;#

    2. (2)

      Treatments for individuals born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including individuals born with ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal abnormalities resulting in ambiguity regarding the individual’s biological sex;#

    3. (3)

      Treatments for individuals with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome; and#

    4. (4)

      Continued treatment of minors who are, prior to July 1, 2023, being treated with irreversible hormone replacement therapies.#

  3. (c)

    A licensed physician who violates this Code section shall be held administratively accountable to the board for such violation.#

Reading note: a word broken across two lines in the printed volume was joined by rule and could not be checked against the volume's own vocabulary. The official page linked below settles any doubt.

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Code 1981, § 43-34-15, enacted by Ga. L. 2023, p. 6, § 3/SB 140, effective July 1, 2023.

Effective date

This Code section became effective July 1, 2023.

Editor's notes

Ga. L. 2023, p. 6, § 1/SB 140, not codified by the General Assembly, provides: “The General Assembly finds that: “(1) There has been a massive unexplained rise in diagnoses of gender dysphoria among children over the past ten years, with most of those experiencing this phenomenon being girls; “(2) Gender dysphoria is often comorbid with other mental health and developmental conditions, including autism spectrum disorder; “(3) A significant portion of children with gender dysphoria do not persist in their gender dysphoric conditions past early adulthood; “(4) Certain medical treatments for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapies and surgeries, have permanent and irreversible effects on children; “(5) No large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning; on the contrary, the General Assembly is aware of statistics showing a rising number of such individuals who, as adults, have regretted undergoing such treatment and the permanent physical harm it caused; “(6) Under the principle of ‘do no harm,’ taking a wait-and-see approach to minors with gender dysphoria, providing counseling, and allowing the child time to mature and develop his or her own identity is preferable to causing the child permanent physical damage; and “(7) The General Assembly has an obligation to protect children, whose brains and executive functioning are still developing, from undergoing unnecessary and irreversible medical treatment.”

Cross references

Treatment of minors for gender dysphoria, § 31-7-3.5.

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t43-ch33-51-(v30a)-pdf.pdf, Volume V30A, 2021 edition, 2025 supplement, pages 42 to 43; merge action: added; file SHA-256 44f7cde3ccfe.