Battle over gender policies for minors also rages in Chile

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 7, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Since mid-2024, Chile’s legislative branch has been reviewing various regulations on the use of medications and procedures designed to enable the “gender transition” of minors.

Last month, both the country’s Chamber of Deputies and Senate approved a rule in the national budget to prevent the financing of transgender-focused hormone and surgical treatments for minors in the government’s public health network. The measure, slated to take effect in January 2025, is being challenged in court by President Gabriel Boric and his allies.

“The Ministry of Health may not finance expenses related to the acquisition, prescription, or administration of medications for the purpose of using hormonal therapy, be it puberty blocking or cross-hormones, which are part of or are in themselves a form of treatment for gender dysphoria, whether clinically diagnosed or not, in minors,” the approved text states.

“Nor may expenses be incurred for personnel, goods, and consumer services for sex reassignment operations that are part of or are in themselves a form of treatment for gender dysphoria, whether clinically diagnosed or not, in minors,” the law adds.

Tomás Henríquez, advocacy director for Latin America at ADF International, commented that the law “sets an important precedent for the protection of children, not only in Chile but in all Latin American countries. Chile deserves to be praised for having taken an important step to say no to the dangers of gender ideology.”

Proponents of gender ideology hold that both adults and minors can change genders according to their own whims and even against their biological sex.

Every child, Henríquez added, “has the absolute right to be protected from a radical ideology that promotes dangerous medications and surgeries with devastating consequences.”

Roberto Astaburuaga of Chile’s Community and Justice platform — which closely follows the issue — said that on Dec. 2, the Boric government and a group of 42 deputies requested that the country’s Constitutional Court declare the rule unconstitutional.

“If that happens, the public health network would have funding to continue providing this type of treatment to children and young people,” he warned.

Gender ideology-infected government

In mid-November and by 7 votes to 6, the special investigative commission of the Chamber of Deputies approved its report on the cases of minors receiving psychological, hormonal, and surgical treatment in the public health network. The text “strongly recommends the immediate suspension of all programs related to the so-called ‘gender transition’ of children,” Astaburuaga noted.

The legal expert also told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the approved document reveals that “between April 2023 and August 2024, more than 2,500 minors entered the government’s Gender Identity Support Program (PAIG, by its Spanish acronym) “and about 50 are under 10 years old.”

In addition, Astaburuaga pointed out that the Chilean government runs a gender ideology-infected Grow with Pride program for Chilean minors “between 3 and 17 years old who express confusion about gender identity.” These government programs, he warned, are “the gateway to hormone therapy and allow officials to report parents if they object to their children entering or being referred to it.”

Despite all this, on Nov. 22 the Senate approved continued public financing for the program, according to the newspaper La Tercera.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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