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Puberty blockers latest target in Georgia GOP lawmakers’ 2025 campaign against transgender care • Georgia Recorder
Puberty blockers latest target in Georgia GOP lawmakers’ 2025 campaign against transgender care
by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
February 13, 2025
So far this month, the Georgia Senate has passed two bills adding new restrictions on transgender Georgians, and they could be going for a hat trick.
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services approved a bill that would bar doctors from prescribing puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria, a feeling of distress that comes from one’s gender identity not matching one’s body.
The bill’s author, Sen. Ben Watson, a Savannah Republican and a physician, argued that prescribing puberty blockers breaks the Hippocratic oath doctors take to do no harm.
“Puberty blockers do do harm, and that’s the issue,” Watson said. “It changes the bone structure, it changes so many things, but it’s a natural response that youth are going through. They’re going through puberty. These are puberty blockers. It is a natural process that they go through.”
The bill could head to the full Senate, which has recently passed bills banning transgender girls from school sports and preventing transgender state employees from receiving gender-affirming care on the state health care plan. Neither have passed the House yet.
Issues of transgender rights have been attention-getters in Washington as well as in statehouses around the country, but they’re also personal for parents like Peter Isbister, founder of the metro Atlanta chapter of TransParent, a support group for parents of transgender kids, and the dad of a transgender child.
“My 11-year-old son will get the health care he needs, I am privileged to say, because I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that he does. Why? Because I love him, as you love your children,” he told the committee.
“Do you trust yourselves to provide for your children’s health care? I would imagine that you do,” he added. “Do you trust yourself to love your child and teach him and show him or her the love of God as we do at Congregation Bet Haverim, where we believe that we are all in the image of God? I am sure that you do, that you trust yourselves. I am asking you to trust me and to trust us, because we are not different than you.”
Doctors weigh in
To treat gender dysphoria in children, doctors may recommend options including social transitioning, which could include adopting a new name or pronouns; hormone therapy, in which patients take estrogen or testosterone; or puberty blocking drugs, which pause the process of puberty.
Many transgender people who underwent puberty describe it as an awful experience in which their bodies changed in ways that did not feel natural.
According to the Mayo Clinic, puberty blockers can improve mental health for those dealing with gender dysphoria, but use of common puberty blockers can lead to complications, including dealing with bone growth and density as well as fertility, depending on when the medicine is started.
Speaking over Zoom at Wednesday’s hearing, Dr. Michelle Zeanah, a Statesboro-based pediatrician invited by the committee who specializes in caring for children with autism, said children are legally barred from making life-altering decisions like getting tattoos, and they should not be allowed to make a big decision like starting puberty blockers.
“I encounter young people that can’t label their emotions every day,” she said. “And some of them are very smart students who make excellent grades, qualify for gifted programs, but that doesn’t mean that they understand their emotions or that they can convey abstract concepts or understand abstract concepts. They also really often have difficulty understanding the perspective of others, and those deficits really impact their own sexuality and their relationships. So allowing children and adolescents to make decisions that are permanent doesn’t really seem in their best interest.”
Zeanah said her expertise was relevant because children with autism are more likely to experience gender dysphoria or identify as LGBTQ.
Dr. David McKalip, a Cartersville-based neurosurgeon, urged lawmakers to move forward with the ban.
“When you shut down puberty for years, there’s no going back. There’s no ethical practice of medicine that can support stopping the natural sexual development of kids,” he said. “The only reversibility comes when you use it for things like precocious puberty for a year or two, but not for when you stop it for years. Kids on puberty blockers for gender dysphoria are more likely to go on to use dangerous cross-sex hormones, the vast majority do, and move on to pursue cross-sex surgeries.”
Dr. Jason Schneider, a physician who provides gender-affirming care in metro Atlanta, said the idea that children are altering their gender on a whim is false.
“It’s a very small percentage of kids who ultimately identify as transgender,” he said. “If a parent or a family member brings in a child that they’re wondering if they may be transgender, there are social workers, there are psychologists, there are therapists that work with the child over months to years before they get to the point where puberty blockers are even considered.”
Schneider said it’s true that the drugs may have side effects, but he said that is not abnormal and doctors monitor their patients and limit the time they can take puberty blockers.
“The physicians on the committee know there is no perfect medication,” he said. “There are risks and benefits with every treatment we offer, and so it’s a discussion. Yeah, there is a risk of changes in bone health as you get older, but that’s something we can monitor. That’s something we can treat. But when you compare that to the high rates of depression and suicidality for kids that have gender dysphoria, the benefits clearly outweigh any long-term risks.”
Georgia banned doctors from performing gender-affirming surgeries or prescribing hormone treatments for minors with gender dysphoria in 2023 but left puberty blockers available.
At the time, GOP lawmakers, including Watson, described that as a compromise that would allow children and their families more time to undergo mental health treatments and perhaps decide not to seek hormone therapy.
The following year – as Watson faced a primary challenge for the first time since 2010 – he offered a puberty blocker ban bill, which passed the Senate but fell short in the House.
“We have debated this bill last year,” Watson said. “It passed here, passed in the Senate, I look forward to the House doing that. When you look at the accumulation of the data, I think it is the right thing to do, protecting the minors from puberty blockers.”
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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.
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News from the South - Georgia News Feed
Trump says he was ‘being a little bit sarcastic’ when he promised to end Ukraine war in 24 hours
SUMMARY: President Trump acknowledged he was “a little bit sarcastic” about his past claim to end the Ukraine-Russia war in 24 hours. While campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, Trump insisted he could negotiate peace quickly, stating, “there’s a very easy negotiation.” In a recent interview, he mentioned being optimistic about a cease-fire framework agreed upon by Ukrainians and expressed hope for a similar agreement with Russia. When asked if he was in direct communication with Putin, Trump implied they were working together, but he emphasized the complex nature of the conflict, noting the urgent need to stop the war.
The post Trump says he was ‘being a little bit sarcastic’ when he promised to end Ukraine war in 24 hours appeared first on www.wsav.com
News from the South - Georgia News Feed
Georgia Power to argue new long-term plan to PSC after Legislature stalls consumer-friendly bills
Georgia Power to argue new long-term plan to PSC after Legislature stalls consumer-friendly bills
by Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder
March 17, 2025
The Georgia Public Service Commission is scheduled to begin hearing testimony later this month from Georgia Power officials about how the state’s largest utility plans to spend billions of dollars to meet its skyrocketing energy demand, primarily due to the projected growth of large data centers supporting artificial intelligence.
State regulators have set aside multiple days for hearings on Georgia Power’s long-term 2025 Integrated Resource Plan. Company officials estimate that 80% of its projected increased energy demand over the next decade is tied to expected new data centers growth in the state.
Georgia Power is projecting electrical load growth will increase by 8,200 megawatts by 2030, representing an increase of 2,200 megawatts compared to its forecast in the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan update. One megawatt can power about 600 homes.
The latest demonstration of the growing interest from prospective data center companies emerged last week with an application filed with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a massive data center in Troup County.
The Project West proposal is for a 513-acre data center campus comprising six industrial buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet. The centers house computer servers and typically require a large supply of electricity to run.
“Georgia’s economy is continuing to grow, which increases the need for electricity in businesses and factories,” a panel of Georgia Power executives said in March 10 testimony filed with the PSC. “The state’s population is also growing, leading to more electricity use in homes. The rise in large commercial and industrial customers, such as data centers and manufacturing plants, is contributing to the new demand. Also, the adoption of electric vehicles, both for personal and business use, is steadily driving up electricity consumption.”
Georgia Power regularly updates every three years its Integrated Resource Plan, which is the company’s 20-year comprehensive plan for meeting the needs of current and future customers. The hearings on the latest plan will being March 25.
Georgia lawmakers, clean energy and consumer advocacy groups are concerned about state regulators signing off on Georgia Power’s repeated utility bill increases as the investor-owned utility has passed along to ratepayers new electricity base rates, overrun costs associated with building two new Vogtle nuclear power plant units, coal ash cleanup and other expenses.
All told, the average Georgia Power household is paying about $43 more per month on utility bills since the start of 2020. Georgia Power is the largest supplier of electricity in the state, with about 2.7 million customers.
A pair of major cases will be settled by the five elected members of the state regulatory commission this year, which will affect Georgia Power ratepayers’ pocketbooks as well as determine the mix of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources the company will use to generate electricity for the next few years.
During PSC proceedings, environmental organizations, consumer protection nonprofits, manufacturers, and other groups offer expert testimony and perform cross examinations of witnesses.
Earlier this month, Georgia legislation intended to protect residential consumers from rising utility costs associated with data centers failed to advance out of the House and Senate chambers ahead of the critical March 6 Crossover Day deadline.
State senator pushes bill to protect Georgia Power customers from rate hikes fueled by data centers
The full Senate did not hold a chamber floor vote on two bills sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Rome Republican who says rising utility and property tax bills are the two most common complaints he hears from Georgians.
Hufstetler said Saturday that a data center amendment likely doomed the passage of his Senate Bill 94, which would re-establish a utility consumer advocacy office that provides legal and financial resources for residential consumers and small businesses in electric rate cases and other utility matters.
Hufstetler said he was unable to get a full Senate vote on his consumer utility counsel bill despite having 45 out of 56 senators’ support for his amendment to prevent utility companies from passing data center costs along to residential and small business customers, who have been handed six rate increases since the beginning of 2022.
He said he plans to continue to advocate in future sessions for his bill to re-establish the consumer utility counsel that was abolished in statewide budget cuts mandated by Gov. Sonny Perdue during the 2008 recession.
In the absence of the counsel, consumers depend on the PSC staff to represent ratepayer interests.
Hufstetler criticized Georgia Power for overbuilding in a way that allows the company’s shareholders to maximize profits and called for the commission to hold the company accountable for rising costs.
“I did say I’ll pull the amendment if that’ll get the utility counsel but then it ran out of time so it didn’t happen,” Hufstetler said. “I’m certainly disappointed that with the majority of the senators wanting this bill that wasn’t allowed to be on the Senate floor and get passed.
“On the other hand, we had numerous statements from both the PSC and Georgia Power that they would not pass on any of these costs to the residential and small business customers,” Hufstetler said. “At the same time, they didn’t like my bill, which said exactly that, but I think we can certainly hold them accountable for their numerous statements that they would not pass down this cost.”
Representatives with Georgia Power and the Data Center Coalition said they opposed Senate Bill 34 because it would give the state Legislature control over a ratemaking process that is typically handled by the elected five-member PSC.
They argued that new rules that apply to data center adopted by the PSC are sufficient to prevent residential and commercial customers from getting stuck with costs incurred to serve data centers.
The new rules include a provision allowing Georgia Power to require data center companies to put up front-end collateral for energy costs over the lifetime of the contract. If the company abandons the project prior to the contract expiring, then Georgia Power would keep the remaining money owed.
Another utility-related bill that failed to advance by the Legislature’s Crossover Day deadline was Woodstock Republican Rep. Jordan Ridley’s House Bill 446, which would have granted discovery rights to all parties at PSC hearings, giving stakeholders new authority to request information during electric rate cases and other utility proceedings.
Allison Kvien, Vote Solar’s Southeast regulatory director, criticized Georgia lawmakers who failed to increase transparency at a time when many people are struggling to pay higher energy bills.
“HB 446 would have allowed all stakeholders to better advocate for policies that encourage economic development and access to affordable, clean energy in commission proceedings” Kvien said. “Georgia Power shouldn’t be the only one with a seat at the table – Georgia households and businesses deserve to give informed input into decisions about their energy future.”
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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.
The post Georgia Power to argue new long-term plan to PSC after Legislature stalls consumer-friendly bills appeared first on georgiarecorder.com
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From 90° to snow flurries: Augusta’s wild St. Patrick’s Day weather history
SUMMARY: St. Patrick’s Day weather in the CSRA has varied greatly over the years. The average high in Augusta is 69.3°F, but recent years have been consistently warmer. The hottest St. Patrick’s Day reached 90°F in 1945, while the coldest was 42°F in 1892 and 2005. Rain is typically light, with an average of just 0.09 inches, although 32% of years see measurable precipitation. The wettest day on record was 1.96 inches in 1920. Rarely, there’s been snow, like in 1936. Despite fluctuations, the chances of needing a winter coat are low, so enjoy the festivities!
The post From 90° to snow flurries: Augusta’s wild St. Patrick’s Day weather history appeared first on www.wjbf.com
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