In a personal and passionate testimony before the House Government Committee, AZ Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp (R-LD29) made a forceful case for Senate Bill 1586, legislation that would allow detransitioners to seek financial compensation for medical costs and harm related to gender transition procedures they later regretted. Speaking not just as a lawmaker but as a former nurse and a woman with lived experience, Shamp urged lawmakers to support those for whom she believes the medical system has failed.

“In the last several years, the practice of medicine has taken an alarming turn,” Shamp said. “Health professionals are putting ideology above the lives and health of our kids who are struggling with gender dysphoria.” She accused some providers of rushing minors into life-altering medical decisions without adequate caution, research, or long-term support — a failure, she said, that violates the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm.”

The bill, SB 1586, would create a legal pathway for individuals who underwent gender transition treatments as minors and later chose to detransition, allowing them to recover damages and related healthcare costs. “Healthcare providers should never have performed any of these procedures outside the context of clinical trials,” Shamp argued. “Now, the providers must be held accountable for the harm they have done to our children.”

Citing detransitioner and activist Chloe Cole by name, Shamp defended her use of the term “butchering” to describe the irreversible procedures some minors have undergone. She said these surgeries were promoted without solid scientific backing and compared the drugs involved to those previously deemed inhumane for use on criminals — yet now prescribed to children.

Senator Shamp shared her own childhood experience, highlighting how easily she believes she could have been pushed down the wrong path if today’s cultural and medical norms had existed back then.

“I was a tomboy with a sick parent,” she recalled. “I played football. I wanted to  wrestle. I was shy and scared… and I would have been right for the picking.” She described a heated argument with her mother at age 13, furious that she had been “born a girl” — a moment of confusion she said was part of normal adolescent development, not a medical condition.

“I didn’t know who I was yet,” she said. “And I stand here today, a very proud woman. And I own that title.”

Shamp expressed disbelief and anger at the idea that a teacher or counselor might have encouraged her to medically transition at that vulnerable age. “How can we say to parents: ‘Do you want a dead boy or a live daughter?’ That’s not medical care. That’s manipulation.”

“This Is About Medical Malfeasance”

Throughout her testimony, Shamp repeatedly emphasized that SB 1586 is not about partisanship or culture wars but about protecting kids from what she sees as a broken and ideologically driven healthcare system.

“This is about medical malfeasance. This is about children. This isn’t about anything else,” she said. “It’s not about rhetoric. It’s not about politics. It’s about our children.”

She closed her remarks by thanking the committee and urging them to vote yes. “If there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing to our children, then this bill will never matter. But if there is — and we know there is — we must act. I urge you to protect the kids of Arizona.”

Speaking in opposition, Paul Bixler, the first transgender to hold elected office in Arizona, previously served on the Liberty Elementary School District Governing Board until ousted in the last election.

In his testimony, Bixler opposed the bill, stating, “We exist. Being transgender is not a choice.” He argued that the bill “does not protect children or ensure parental rights” and “violates the spirit and the letter of the Arizona parental bill of rights.”

Bixler contended that SB 1586 undermines informed consent, which “empowers the person’s right to make decisions in their best interest.” He also noted that legal avenues for addressing related issues “already exist within our civil court structure.”

Concluding his remarks, Bixler characterized the bill as “another attempt to take out of existence the transgender citizens of Arizona,” and challenged legislators by asking, “What are you afraid of?”

The bill received a Do Pass, along party lines.