Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signs bill to prevent gender reassignment services at children's hospital

On Tuesday, Governor Kevin Stitt (R) signed a bill to prevent "gender reassignment medical treatment" at Oklahoma Children's Hospital at OU Health.

The legislation immediately went into effect upon receiving Governor Stitt's signature.

"By signing this bill today we are taking the first step to protect chiildren from permanent gender transition surgeries and therapies. It is wildly inappropriate for taxpayer dollars to be used for condoning, promoting, or performing these types of controversial procedures on healthy children," said Governor Stitt.

Last week, the children's hospital announced that it planned to put an end to "certain gender medicine services" after the state legislature placed new funding restrictions in the bill.

At that time, the hospital's website stated that its Roy G. Biv program offered gender-related services to minors, including "pausing puberty to further explore gender" with hormone blockers. The children's hospital also offered to help minors find surgeons willing to perform gender-altering surgery on minors.