Legislators take up transgender, budget issues at local Q&A

Transgender rights, public education funding and administering of prescription drugs were a few of the topics taken up at the legislative coffee Saturday at Bethany Meadows’ Brandon campus. 

District 10 and 25 House and Senate representatives fielded questions from the public in the 90-minute forum, which was organized by the Brandon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce.

Several audience members were curious about the representatives’ stances on a bill that would criminalize transgender health care for minors.  

House Bill 1057 is scheduled to be voted upon on Wednesday. All 10 and 25 legislators, with the exception of Rep. Doug Barthel (R-Sioux Falls), said they supported the bill, which would make it illegal for doctors to prescribe hormones or perform sex reassignment surgery on youth under the age of 16.

“The testimony in support of the bill is very compelling. The testimony against it is anecdotal at best,” said Rep. Steve Haugaard (R-Sioux Falls). 

“Why isn’t our medical board involved in making this decision?” asked Nichole Cauwels. “Shouldn’t this be handled at the medical board level, and with the physicians?”

“It’s not just off-the-cuff response to the issue,” Haugaard said. “It’s looking at the science; it’s looking at individuals on a one-on-one basis as well.”

Haugaard went on to say that interrupting the body’s development before puberty could be an irreversible mistake. 

“There’s always been people, maybe men who are a little more effeminate and women who are a little bit more masculine,” he said. “But now, we seem to have this in the forefront. It’s being affected in large part, I think, by the culture.”

Rep. Jon Hansen (R-Dell Rapids) agreed, saying there were no studies showing the long-term effects of cross-sex hormone therapy, and performing it on minors isn’t FDA approved.

Barthel got a smattering of applause when he said he didn’t support the bill “in its current form.”

“I don’t think anybody should be legislating what’s happening in the exam room,” he said. 

Cauwels later said she attended the legislative coffee for other bills, such as HB 1008, which would legalize industrial hemp.

“This specific topic is taking away from issues we really should be legislating,” she said of the transgender discussion.

The legislators also spoke frankly about South Dakota’s current budget shortage. 

The topic arose when Siri Sorenson asked about the lack of funding increase for K-12 education in Governor Kristi Noem’s proposed budget. 

Sorenson said she was “very concerned” about the future of K-12 education.

“We have a brain drain going on already,” she said.

Sen. Margaret Sutton (R-Sioux Falls), who serves on the appropriations committee, addressed the question.

“Revenue is down. When you look at all the disasters we’ve had, you’ve got some real issues out in the rural areas that we also had to address,” Sutton said. “We are fully aware …We are going to have to be creative.”

She estimated the state would need to cut $16 million to pay for the mandatory annual raise in teachers’ salaries (3 percent or the rate of inflation).

Haugaard said the state’s budget should be deconstructed and reconfigured from scratch. 

“But it takes some political will, and we don’t seem to have that,” he said.

He also said he didn’t agree with mandatory salary increases.

“For us to have a law in the book that you have to raise somebody’s pay – that doesn’t make any sense,” Haugaard said. “We’re funding a formula that, in many ways, isn’t working very well.”

The legislators also addressed SB 50, which would give nurse anesthesiologists the same prescriptive authority that physicians have. 

Ryan Schellpfeffer, a Sioux Falls anesthesiologist, testified against the bill in Pierre last week and attended the legislative coffee to get the legislators’ thoughts. 

“Specifically, that would include opioids and narcotics,” he said. “Gov. Noem and the Department of Health have been on the ‘We’re On Meth’ campaign. We want to make sure that the same attention is paid to the opioid crisis as well.” 

The legislators said that their understanding of the bill was that it wouldn’t give certified nurse anesthesiologists authority beyond what they were trained for. 

A second legislative coffee will be held with District 10 and 25 legislators at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, at Bethany Meadows in Brandon.