Lawmakers on the Assembly Health, Aging and Long-Term Care committee weighed what happened during a tense hearing on a bill to ban gender affirming medical care and then voted along party lines to advance the bill. Rep. Lisa Subeck became emotional while speaking to her colleagues. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

A little over 12 hours after a tense public hearing on a resurrected bill to ban gender affirming medical care for children, lawmakers on the Assembly Health, Aging and Long-Term Care committee weighed what happened and then voted along party lines to advance the bill.

AB 104 would ban gender affirming care, including prescribing puberty-blocking drugs or gender-affirming surgery, for those under 18. It would also require revocation of a medical provider’s license found to be providing the care. It is the fourth bill focused on transgender youth in Wisconsin to receive a hearing over the last two weeks. 

“After sitting through the hearing on this bill yesterday, I would hope some people are taking a step back and saying, wait a minute, maybe this isn’t the route that we should go,” Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) said during Thursday’s executive session. She noted that one person at the hearing even had a “change of heart.”

Larry Jones of Milwaukee spoke about seven hours into the hearing. Sitting in front of lawmakers, he began apologizing for being there and said he was invited to the hearing to show his support for the bill.

“I have very little knowledge of gay people and things like that there, so when I came here, my eyes were opened,” he said Wednesday at around 9:12 p.m. “I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decisions there was only two genders, so I got an education that was unbelievable and I don’t know just exactly how to say this but my perspective for people have changed. I’d like to apologize for being here and I learned a very lot about this group of people.”

Subeck, talking to her colleagues the next day, became emotional as she spoke about the committee’s upcoming vote on the bill.

“The governor is going to veto [the bill]. I feel really good about that,” Subeck said. “I don’t feel so good about the fact that we’re gonna have a vote here where people are gonna vote to support this.” 

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a similar bill last session, and vowed to LGBTQ+ youth in January to continue vetoing any bill that “makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place.”

Subeck said the bill causes harm. It is the latest in a slate of bills focused on LGBTQ+ youth introduced by Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin. The bills come as President Donald Trump has also made targeting transgender people a key point in the first couple months of his term. In a recent survey of Wisconsin LGBTQ+ youth by the Trevor Project, 91% of respondents reported that recent politics negatively impacted their well-being.

Subeck pointed to the emotional testimony lawmakers heard into the night, including from Charlie Werner, a teen, who testified with his parents, Allison and Dan Werner, around 8 p.m. The family was also present in 2023 at a bill hearing and when Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill. 

Werner told lawmakers that he was dealing with depression before realizing he was dealing with gender dysphoria. He said that therapy and finding community, especially among other queer and trans people, has “lifted” him.

Werner said the gender affirming care he has received, including puberty blockers and later receiving testosterone, has helped him go “from being so uncomfortable in my body to finally feeling a bit of clarity.” He said the care has allowed him to experience similar traits as his cisgender peers, including a lower voice.

“I finally feel like myself,” Werner said. “Gender affirming care saved my life… I don’t believe you are bad people. I simply think this is what you have been taught, but you still have the opportunity to change and make better decisions for the people that you serve.” 

Subeck had a similar message for her colleagues during the executive session. 

“Many of you I’ve known for a very long time, some of us came into this Legislature together. I know that you’re good people who care. I know that,” Subeck, who has served since 2014, said. “That is why it’s so bothersome to me to think … you can sit in this room and vote for this bill… We’re better than that as a body. This isn’t about doing what’s right.”

Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee) said that he used the hearing time to listen and to learn, and pushed back on the idea that the bill is a “judgment on trans people.” Rather, he said, the bill comes from a “conservative approach to medical care that may be irreversible.”

“If you’re accusing us of wanting to be conservative when it comes to the medical care of minors, then that is true…,” Neylon said. “That doesn’t mean we want them dead, right? That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize their right to exist.”

However, Neylon also acknowledged that the bill may not be the exact right approach. 

“It might not be hitting directly where it should and it might come across political and I understand the pain and I wanted to stay [at the hearing] to make sure that people had an opportunity to share their things…,” Neylon said. “I would be angry if I was young too, but it’s not coming from a place of saying, like trying to other them or saying, like, you don’t belong in our society.”

Committee Chair Rep. Clint Moses said that the hearing was beginning to become unproductive because of “political theater” as some members were being yelled at. He had two people removed by officers from the committee room for yelling during the hearing. 

Throughout the hearing, there were moments of frustration for both lawmakers and members of the public who came to speak.

One of those moments came a little over 6 hours and 18 minutes into the hearing when FAIR Wisconsin Executive Director Abigail Swetz finally got her opportunity to speak to lawmakers. She used her time to tell transgender youth in the state that there are “many of us in this state who love you exactly as you are and exactly as you are becoming.” She reached the time limit before finishing her comments.

Rep. Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) asked if Swetz had anything she wanted to add. Moses stopped this, saying it wasn’t allowed. Johnson replied that others had done the same earlier. 

Swetz started finishing her comments as the lawmakers went back and forth and others in the room started to clap. Moses then began banging his gavel and threatened to adjourn the meeting if the clapping continued.

Moses told the committee on Thursday that he “was ready to adjourn and just walk out because it was not productive.” He then suggested that members look at the Assembly rules again. 

“The chairman of the committee has a lot of power the way it’s set up, so I try not to abuse it — be a tyrant,” Moses said. “I want to hear from everybody. I don’t care if you agree with me or not. I want all perspectives in there, so I’m doing my best to do it, but yesterday it got a little much, a little much, so I think maybe dial it back on some of these with the theater.” 

Moses said he had to start cutting time because of the number of people who came to speak and how late the hearing was running. 

Johnson said the tension in the room was partially because people had been waiting so long to be heard by lawmakers. 

“Some of the escalation came because they felt disenfranchised,” Johnson said. “They felt like it was very lopsided that the pro-voices were heard at greater length, including when my colleagues also asked questions that extended testimony for very long stretches of time.” 

Hearings on bills focused on transgender youth have often been lengthy and emotional. Last week, a hearing on bills that would mandate how schools deal with transgender athletes and name changes lasted over 10 hours. In 2023, many showed up in opposition to a gender affirming care ban bill.

The hearing Wednesday lasted nearly nine hours, but mostly supporters spoke during the first three hours of the hearing despite being vastly outnumbered by opponents.

According to the record of committee proceedings, there were 79 people who appeared against the bill and 18 who appeared for, including the two bill authors. There were also 17 people who registered in favor of the bill, but didn’t speak and 103 people who registered against, but didn’t speak at the hearing. 

At one point during the hearing, Subeck asked Moses to begin alternating between supporters and opponents of the bill, but he responded by saying that was up to him.

Some opponents to the bill spoke about their frustration with this when they finally got their chance to speak.

“We sit here for all this time, all these people, you’re allowing the anti-trans voices to go first. It feels like the world is stacked against us and we’re getting tired of it,” Cory Neeley said. “My voice is cracking because I’m literally fuming at the fact that I’ve sat here all day long listening to people call me a groomer. People calling me a person who doesn’t care about their children… I’m a good parent.”

Subeck told the Wisconsin Examiner in a call Friday that she has seen chairs put certain voices first before, but the degree to which it was done was “unusual” and “pretty unprecedented.” The first three hours of the hearing were mostly supporters of the bill, aside from Sens. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) and Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove).

“Committee chairs often try to, if they can, literally go back and forth, one to one,” Subeck said. “But even if you’re not literally going one for, one against, certainly front loading it so heavily when you have a room full of people there to testify against, including families with children who are going to be impacted by the bill, it certainly felt more like a tactic than a simple oversight.” 

Subeck noted there was some disruption during the hearing and there can be consequences for that.

“I also can’t help but wonder how it could have been different if the chair had actually let some of the folks who were there to testify against the bill testify before we were already a couple of hours into the bill,” Subeck said. “Some of the hateful rhetoric of those early testifiers was directed directly at some of those young people who were coming to testify about how this bill impacted them.”

Moses told lawmakers Thursday he would take the criticism into consideration

“If there’s any issues anyone has, you know, how they’re running? Please come and see me,” Moses said. “We’ll try and work it out privately if I’m still doing it.”

Rep. Rob Brooks (R-Saukville) acknowledged that the conversation about the issue was painful for everyone involved, but he said he thinks the conversation does need to be had. He and Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said that an informational hearing, rather than a hearing on a bill, may have been a more “prudent” approach for lawmakers to learn more. 

“You’re right, it’s not going to become law,” Brooks said. “I do think yesterday was beneficial from an educational standpoint for a lot of us, regardless of how you vote. I don’t know how you can’t come out of there a little richer with your knowledge on both sides. I’m going to support the bill.”

The committee voted 10-5 with Republicans for and Democrats against to advance the bill, setting it up to go to the Assembly floor.

Subeck told the Examiner that she was “disappointed and frustrated and upset” Republicans voted for it, saying “they are still putting what is truly partisan motivation… political agenda ahead of the kids and families who came and testified to us.”

However, she said the conversation during the Thursday executive session did give her some hope. 

“In private, legislators have a lot of conversations that don’t reflect the votes that are taken on the floor, and I think the tenor of the conversation in that room was a little bit closer to the conversations that we often have when we are sitting one on one, talking to each other,” Subeck told the Wisconsin Examiner. “It makes me a little bit hopeful, because while my Republican colleagues continue down the path of voting their party line — even when they have said they have things to learn and it gives them pause — the fact that they were willing to even sit in that room, in sort of a public sphere, and have a conversation means that there is room for change.”

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Correction: This story has been updated to correct the number of people that spoke for and against the bill.

Transgender flags being held by people during a demonstration. (Getty Images)

Republican and Democratic lawmakers engaged in heated back and forth during a Wednesday hearing on a bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for Wisconsin youth.

The bill is among an increasing number of anti-trans bills being introduced across the country, and it’s the fourth bill related to transgender youth to get a hearing in the Wisconsin Assembly in the last two weeks.

According to the Trans Legislation Tracker, 738 bills have been introduced across the country in 2025. The increase in bills comes as President Donald Trump has signed a series of executive orders that target transgender people as well as gender-affirming care. 

Bill authors Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee) and Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) said they just want to “protect” children.  

“I am not here to tell any adult what he or she should do with his or her own body,” Tomczyk said. “A person who is 18 years of age or older has the ability to get a tattoo, get married, buy a gun, serve his or her country… without receiving permission from someone else. Getting irreversible gender reassignment surgery is another one of those things.”

The bill — AB 104 — would ban gender-affirming care for people under the age of 18. It would prohibit health care providers from engaging in or making referrals for medical intervention “if done for the purpose of changing the minor’s body to correspond to a sex that is discordant with the minor’s biological sex,” including prescribing puberty-blocking drugs or gender-affirming surgery for minors.

The bill includes a handful of exceptions — including if a “health care provider is providing a service in accordance with a good faith medical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development” — but is otherwise a general ban on the care.

Under the bill, health care providers could be investigated if there are allegations that they have provided this type of care to a minor and could have their licenses revoked by the Board of Nursing, the Medical Examining Board or the Physician Assistant Affiliated Credentialing Board if the investigation finds that they did. 

Tomczyk said he wasn’t introducing the bill to “demonize” the transgender community — a comment that received groans and pushback from others at the hearing. “But as you can hear from the reaction from the gallery, I’m going to be accused of that.”

“Boo! Ridiculous!” one person called out after his testimony.

Committee chair Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) tried to keep the room calm — telling people not to jeer or boo or hold up signs. Throughout the hearing, he had a couple of people removed from the room by police.

Democratic lawmakers sharply criticized the bill, saying lawmakers did not have the experience or medical knowledge to interfere with decisions being made by families and medical providers and were causing harm by introducing the legislation.

“Do any of you have any training or background in the medical field, practitioners or have other training that I might not be aware of?” Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) asked the authors.

“I find the question irrelevant,” Allen said. 

“I just have a degree in common sense,” Tomczyk quipped. 

“Knowing that physicians follow what is considered the standard of care and that is set forth by organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics … why is it that on this particular issue we should substitute the judgment of legislators for the judgement of physicians and families?” Subeck asked. 

“Did you listen to my testimony?” Tomczyck said. “I think we have a responsibility to protect these children under 18 and let them get to 18 to the point where legally they can then make that decision.”

According to KFF, receiving gender-affirming care is a lengthy, meticulous process, and for those under 18, decisions in the process are made with the input of the child, their families and health care providers, including mental health providers. Gender-affirming medical care before 18 mostly focuses on pubertal suppression or hormone therapy.

Surgeries are rare for those under 18. UW Health does not perform genital surgery on transgender girls or boys under 18. UW Health may consider performing chest masculinization, or “top,” surgery for patients under 18 “only after multidisciplinary evaluation, a letter of support from your mental health provider and with informed consent from all legal guardians,” according to a Wisconsin Watch report. 

A 2024 study published by JAMA Network found that transgender teenagers who have pursued medical interventions, including puberty blockers and hormones, have high levels of satisfaction and low levels of regret, with an overwhelming majority — 97% — continuing to access gender-affirming medical care.

Rep. Renuka Mayadev (D-Madison) asked lawmakers why they aren’t trying to solve any real problems and noted that the bill could contribute to increased hate towards transgender people. She pointed to  the case of Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old transgender man from Minnesota recently killed in New York. 

“There’s a transgender man, who was tortured and assaulted and beaten to death. He was beaten because of the hate that people have, and I want to know why aren’t we protecting people like Sam?” Mayadev asked. “[The bill] is not solving any problems. It’s meddling in the patient, doctor relationship.” 

The lawmakers asked if the crime happened in Wisconsin and noted that it happened to an adult and they are focused on children. 

This is the third time the legislation has been introduced. Last session, a similar bill was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, who then vowed to reject any further legislation targeting LGBTQ+ youth.

Allen said he expects “victory” for the bill, saying that public opinion can change over time. 

“I’ve seen bills in the body — session after session after session after session — where the author refuses to give up because they believe that it’s a good idea,” Allen said. “I think that’s our responsibility as legislators, to represent our constituency and advocate for what we think is the right thing. We may not have popular opinion on our side, not at some point in time maybe we will.”

Allen said that the idea for the policy came from the Family Policy Alliance, a conservative Christian organization that has advocated for anti-trans legislation across the country.

Some of those that testified in favor of the bill included Do No Harm, a lobbying group that opposes gender-affirming medical care as well as diversity, equity and inclusion, Moms For Liberty, Wisconsin Family Action and Gays Against Groomers.

Groups registered against the bill include the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Inc, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Fair Wisconsin Inc., Medical College of Wisconsin, Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Wisconsin Council of Churches and the Wisconsin Medical Society.

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) and Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) called the bill “cruel” and said it would take the state backwards in time. Ratcliff, whose son is trans, said that he “would not be the thriving adult he is today without having the access to the care that allowed him to live his life as his authentic self.” 

“Why we would want to take away a parent’s ability to provide their children with life-saving care and also restrict their ability to access information to help their child be healthy and happy — it’s beyond me,” Ratcliff said. 

Spreitzer noted that the bill is part of a package of bills that have received hearings this week and last that are “attempting to roll back that progress to make it harder for transgender young people to grow into flourishing transgender adults.” 

Spreitzer said the bill is not going to become law, but just talking about the bill will have negative effects for some people’s mental health.

In a recent survey of 358 Wisconsin LGBTQ+ youths by the Trevor Project, participants reported significant mental health struggles. About 39% of LGBTQ+ youth surveyed reporting seriously considering suicide, including 44% of transgender and nonbinary youth, and 12% reporting a suicide attempt. In addition, 63% of LGBTQ+ surveyed reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety.

“Not everybody’s going to get that message [that the bill won’t become law],” Spreitzer said. “People are going to be afraid that they are going to lose access to care.” He added that Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee recently canceled and then rescheduled some appointments after Trump’s executive order. “This bill only adds to that… It creates a climate of fear.”

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