SW News: Mike Parson, Governor of the American State of Missouri, has signed bills into law banning gender-altering treatment for children and prohibiting gender-confused males from participating on female sports teams. Signing the bill, the Republican Governor said it is an effort to protect the integrity of female sports and Missouri children from potentially harmful experimental surgeries and treatment.

He signed Senate Bill 39 and Senate Bill 49 into law on June 7. With this, the gender-confused youth will no longer have access to puberty blockers, hormones, or gender-altering surgeries. The new bills also ban Medicaid from providing funds to adults who undergo such processes. The law will take effect from August 28.

Parson said the Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act was meant to "protect children from making life-altering decisions that they could come to regret in adulthood once they have physically and emotionally mature."

Doctors who violate the legislation could lose their medical licenses, and healthcare providers could face civil lawsuits for prescribing hormones and puberty blockers to minors.

Parson also signed Senate Bill 39 banning gender-confused student-athletes from joining sports teams opposite their biological sex from kindergarten through college. This applies to both private and public schools. And the schools that violate this legislation would lose state funding. Signing the bill, the governor said that Missouri was standing with the women and girls who have "fought for an equal opportunity to succeed."

Opposing the bills, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would continue to explore all options to fight these bans.