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The Republican House majority voted to censure Zooey Zephyr, a
Democrat, on Wednesday, excluding her from the House chamber for the
rest of the legislative session for saying on April 18 that
lawmakers backing the bill would have blood on their hands.
The legislation, Senate Bill 99, passed the House of Representatives
three days later, and Republican Governor Greg Gianforte signed it
into law on Friday.
Republican politicians have pressed a campaign to restrict special
medical treatments prescribed for transgender youth, including
hormone treatments and puberty blockers, with dozens of similar
bills introduced in legislatures across the U.S.
Opponents of transgender healthcare interventions say their
long-term effects are not fully understood and that children and
teenagers are too young to make such life-altering choices, even
with parental supervision.
Zephyr, a first-term representative from Missoula, declared that
denying gender-affirming care to youngsters who feel at odds with
their birth sex was "tantamount to torture" and that a ban would
lead to more suicides.
Republican House leaders initially reacted to Zephyr's floor
statements by turning off her microphone. The level of acrimony
escalated on Monday of this week when Zephyr led a protest by her
supporters chanting "Let her speak!" from the visitors gallery,
ending in the arrest of seven demonstrators.
The party-line 68-32 vote to formally exclude Zephyr from the House
floor, gallery and anteroom on Wednesday prompted LGBTQ activists to
call on supporters to join in a 24-hour protest event in Missoula
for Friday and Saturday.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday called the
Montana Republican House action against Zephyr a "denial of
democratic values".
The censure has also drawn comparison to the Republican expulsion of
two Black state representatives in Tennessee who were kicked out
three weeks ago for leading a gun control protest on the House
floor. The Tennessee lawmakers were promptly reappointed to their
seats by their county legislatures and earned a trip to the White
House.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in
Lubbock, Texas; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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