Relating to treatment or intervention involving an intersex minor

This bill relates to treatment or intervention involving an intersex minor. The bill provides legislative findings relating to intersex minors and treatments or interventions on their physical sex characteristics. The legislative findings include that enactment of legislation is necessary to ensure the ability of intersex people to participate in decisions about surgery and other medical treatments or interventions on their physical sex characteristics, and to guarantee the rights of intersex people to bodily integrity, autonomy, and self-determination. The bill provides definitions used in the bill including “intersex minor”, “medically necessary”, “physician”, and “treatment or intervention”. The bill prohibits a physician from performing any treatment or intervention on the sex characteristics of an intersex minor, which is not medically necessary and can be deferred, until the person on whom the treatment or intervention is to be performed can provide informed consent. The best interest of the intersex minor shall be the paramount consideration. The bill requires that prior to performing any treatment or intervention on the sex characteristics of an intersex minor which is not medically necessary, a physician shall provide written and oral disclosure to the intersex minor and informed consent shall be obtained from the intersex minor. The bill specifies the parameters of the written and oral disclosure and the obtaining of the informed consent. The bill provides that the bill does not affect the obligation of a physician under any other law to obtain the informed consent of a patient before performing a medical procedure on the patient, including those that may significantly affect the patient’s reproductive health, fertility, or ability to conceive. The bill provides that if a physician determines that it is medically necessary to perform a treatment or intervention on the sex characteristics of an intersex minor, and the physician is not able to obtain the informed consent of the intersex minor in accordance with the bill, the physician may perform the medical procedure only if the physician provides the written and oral disclosure to the parent or guardian of the intersex minor, and the parent or guardian of the intersex minor provides written informed consent in accordance with the bill. The bill requires the board of medicine to adopt administrative rules to administer the bill. The rules shall provide evidence-based protocols to guide physicians in ensuring that intersex minors and their parents are properly informed of all options and alternatives, that an intersex minor is to the greatest extent possible involved in the decision making about any treatment or intervention, that the intersex minor’s choices are fully respected, and that any nonmedically necessary treatment or intervention is only performed with the full, free, and informed consent of the intersex minor.