Committee awaits amendments to proposed liability for social transitioning of transgender minors

by Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate
March 19, 2025

An Arkansas lawmaker promised to amend a bill that would create civil liability for Arkansas adults who assist transgender minors’ transitions after other lawmakers and members of the public presented a flurry of questions and concerns Tuesday.

Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, told the House Judiciary Committee that House Bill 1668, the Vulnerable Youth Protection Act, would deter “social experiments that are really destroying the lives” of children who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth.

The bill would hold liable “any person who knowingly causes” a minor’s social transition or “the castration, sterilization, or mutilation of a minor” for “any personal injuries or harm” resulting from the actions. It would create a 20-year statute of limitations for civil action, and complainants would be able to recover financial damages.

Arkansas was one of the first states to pass a law banning gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender minors. The Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act of 2021, which Bentley co-sponsored, is under appeal in federal court after families of transgender minors sued and obtained a permanent injunction.

More than two dozen other states have passed similar laws since 2021, but no state has enacted a law banning social transitioning, which HB 1668 defines as “any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the minor, including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.”

Rep. Jeremiah Moore, R-Clarendon, said this definition was too broad.

“If a parent takes their daughter to a barbershop… and [the barber] gives that haircut per the child and the parent’s wishes, and that haircut is not a ‘girl’s haircut,’ this language seems to be holding him potentially liable for the next 20 years of his barber career,” Moore said.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office believes the bill is not yet legally sound, senior assistant attorney general Justin Brascher told the committee.

No members of the public came to speak in favor of the bill, while 20 signed up to speak against it and nine received a chance to speak. Some of the nine, including Caitlin Tannehill Oxford, said they have heard concerns from hairdressers about the legislation.

“If my son and I agree that he can get a piercing, that could also be defined as mutilation and I could be held liable,” said Oxford, president of the Washington County Democrats. “My daughter does not dress girly. She loves jeans, not dresses. Would that hold me liable to legal action for allowing her to wear what she likes? By the way, my children are not trans. However, I have many friends and family who are, and I’m here today to support them.”

Bentley said she will amend the bill to “work on some of the definitions and make it clearer.”

Transgender teen shares experience with gender-affirming care in trial against Arkansas law

She and Rebecca Smith, a licensed professional counselor from southeast Texas, both claimed a majority of minors with “gender confusion” eventually return to identifying as their “birth sex.” Medical professionals who testified for the plaintiffs in the trial against the SAFE Act said regret over gender transition is rare, including for people who transition as minors. They also said Arkansas children do not receive gender-affirming breast or genital surgeries.

Smith called HB 1668 “a crucial safeguard against practices that alienate children from their families and disrupt healthy development.”

“This legislation seeks to deter the harmful effects of gender-affirming interventions by providing victims with a path for recourse and ensuring they have the time and opportunity to seek justice once they recognize the self-hatred that has been instilled in them and are ready to reclaim their true identity,” Smith said.

Some of the bill’s opponents said transitioning does not alienate children from their families.

“Hatred and bigotry alienate children from their families… and legislation like this encourages that,” Arkansas Tech University student Jordyn Barnett said.

Legal concerns

HB 1668 includes the statement: “A person shall not be held liable under this section for speech or conduct protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Committee members of both parties and members of the public said the rest of the bill contradicts that statement. An amendment adopted by the committee added the word “knowingly” to the legislation, and Bentley said this should alleviate concerns about the broadness of the bill.

Evelyn Rios Stafford disagreed. She is a Washington County Justice of the Peace and Arkansas’ first and only openly transgender elected official.

“Sometimes I get approached by parents who have kids that are in college, sometimes in high school, and they’ll introduce me to their kid and say… ‘I’d like to introduce you to my trans son, John Doe,’ and I say, ‘John Doe, it’s great to meet you,’” Rios Stafford said. “…Under this bill, that would put me under a civil cause of action for the next 20 years for having that positive interaction with an accepting parent of a 17-year-old.”

First Amendment concerns are among the reasons Griffin’s office is not willing to defend the law in court as it is written, even with Tuesday’s amendments, Brascher said. He added that Griffin’s office is “sympathetic to the intent” of HB 1668, as evidenced by its continued defense of the SAFE Act.

Bentley said HB 1668 “perfectly lines up with” the blocked law. In 2023, she sponsored the Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act, which allowed private enforcement of the SAFE Act by creating civil liability for doctors who provide gender-affirming healthcare to transgender minors. The bill initially had a 30-year statute of limitations before it was amended down to 15 years.

Simon Garbett, a transgender 18-year-old from Little Rock, spoke against the 2023 law and returned to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to speak against HB 1668. He maintained that he is “not a social experiment” and that the idea that gender-affirming healthcare sterilizes trans youth “is a complete lie.”

“Please have empathy for people who are different from you,” Garbett said. “We’re not hurting you, so stop hurting us.”

A legislative pattern

Bentley is also the lead sponsor of House Bill 1669, which passed the House last week. The bill would prohibit “discrimination” in foster care or adoption cases if parents’ “sincerely held religious beliefs” do not affirm transgender minors’ identities.

In 2023, Bentley co-sponsored two more laws related to transgender youth. One forbade public and charter school students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match their gender assigned at birth. The other, the Given Name Act, requires public school teachers and college professors to use the pronouns and names students were assigned at birth unless parents specifically allow them to do otherwise.

Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville, asked Bentley on Tuesday if teachers would be liable for civil action under HB 1668 if they adhere to “the wishes of that parent united with their child, not alienated from them” if the parent has given the permission outlined in the Given Name Act.

“That is correct,” Bentley said. “I think that we’re just saying that social transitioning is excessively harmful to children.”

Marie Mainard O’Connell, a mother of a transgender teen from Little Rock, said she shared Clowney’s concerns.

“[This bill] supposes that parents are not supportive, and in point of fact, I work with a community and dozens of families for whom this bill will make their work as supportive families harder,” said O’Connell, who is a Presbyterian pastor.

“Gutted” Arkansas bill no longer targets drag performers or LGBTQ community, activists say

Another 2023 law Bentley sponsored initially would have banned drag shows from being held within a certain distance of schools, parks and other places children frequent, but the Alliance Defending Freedom helped the sponsors amend the legislation so it would hold up in court. The ADF is a conservative, faith-based advocacy group that has opposed LGBTQ+ rights efforts.

The ADF weighed in on the Given Name Act in 2023, and Bentley said Tuesday that she consulted with the organization while working on HB 1668.

Rep. Wayne Long, R-Bradford, was the Given Name Act’s primary sponsor and said it would prevent “compelled speech”; Rios Stafford said Tuesday that HB 1668 would actually create compelled speech.

Rep. Ashley Hudson, D-Little Rock, pointed out that HB 1668 does not say there will be no civil liability if a child does not socially transition or later detransitions. Bentley said the absence of a cause of action in those cases is “common sense.”

“If they stay with their normal gender, there’s been no hurt or harm that’s been done, so there’d be no lawsuit to file,” Bentley said.

Judiciary Committee chairwoman Rep. Carol Dalby, R-Texarkana, said she will schedule a special order of business for HB 1668 after Bentley files the amendments. The committee did not have enough time to hear all 20 speakers against the bill Tuesday, but Dalby said those who did not get to speak will be preemptively placed on the public comment list for the next hearing on the bill.

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