South Dakota officially bans transgender surgery, cross-sex hormones for minors

South Dakota became the latest state this week to outlaw radical transgender medical procedures for minors, barring doctors from administering largely untested medicine and surgeries to individuals under 18. 

Gov. Kristi Noem signed the bill into law on Monday; the legislation forbids doctors from giving minors cross-sex hormones and drugs that "delay or stop normal puberty" as part of a transgender treatment program. 

Doctors are also barred from performing "any sterilizing surgery, including castration, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, penectomy, and vasectomy" if the physician's intent is to "alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor's perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex."

The legislation broadly prohibits the removal of "any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue."

South Dakota is one among several states that have recently moved to prohibit or proscribe ideologically extreme LGBTQ medical procedures for minors. 

States such as Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee have also been working in recent months to outlaw those medical practices for individuals under 18.