The Republican supermajority in the Kentucky Senate is pushing a new priority bill that would essentially ban any transgender state inmates from receiving hormone therapy.

Senate Bill 2 was filed Friday by Sen. Mike Wilson of Bowling Green. He said on the chamber floor that he just became aware in a January committee meeting that 67 state inmates were receiving “cross-sex hormones,” which he aims to stop with his bill.

“I don't believe that our citizens would want their taxpayer dollars being used for those purposes for those that are in prison that are inmates,” Wilson said. “For me, when I found out about that, I thought, 'My gosh.' There's something that we need to do to make sure this isn't happening.”

Wilson’s bill would specifically ban public funds for “providing a cosmetic service or elective procedure to an inmate,” including “prescribing or administering cross-sex hormones.” His bill would also ban gender-reassignment surgery for inmates, though state officials say that has never happened in Kentucky.

Chris Hartman, the executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group the Fairness Campaign, said the hormone ban of SB 2 is another direct attack by Frankfort Republicans against transgender Kentuckians.

“I wish the Kentucky General Assembly would cease its hyper-fixation on one of our smallest and most vulnerable communities in the Commonwealth, our transgender folks,” Hartman said.

He added that transgender inmates are even more vulnerable, and “those held in Kentucky jails and prisons who need access to the therapies and medications that their doctors have determined that they need.”

The statistics cited by Wilson came from Leah Boggs, the general counsel for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, in a legislative committee hearing last month. She said inmates have received a broad range of hormone therapy for years, but “no gender-affirming surgery has happened, did happen, will happen.”

As of Jan. 8, Boggs said 467 of the 12,842 state inmates were receiving hormone therapy for a wide variety of reasons, but just 67 received hormones for gender dysphoria — a clinically significant distress experienced by people whose gender assigned at birth and gender identity don’t match.

She told lawmakers the DOC has a contract with a pharmacy to provide medicine for inmates that comes from their budget, but did not know the exact cost of covering hormone therapy. If an independent endocrinologist says hormones are necessary to treat a medical need, the agency pays for it.

In the January committee meeting, Sen. David Yates, a Louisville Democrat, said the DOC could get into dangerous legal territory if it tries “to make a determination of which medicine they're going to supply to inmates based on their own belief of what's reasonable and necessary,” instead of a doctor.

Boggs concurred, saying “we would not substitute our decision for a doctor that said treatment was reasonably, medically necessary.”

Hartman said SB 2 amounted to “an attempt to block an incredibly small population from receiving the health care that they need.”

“Hormone replacement therapy and mental health therapy for transgender folks is not cosmetic or elective, and they're receiving the care that their doctors have determined that they need,” Hartman said.

One section of SB 2 states that if an inmate is already undergoing elective hormone therapy and their doctor determines that immediately terminating its use would cause physical harm, “the health care provider may institute a period during which the inmate’s use of the drug or hormone is systematically reduced and eliminated.”

Boggs was under questioning from the committee in January as her department withdrew a proposed regulation from December that was heavily criticized by Republicans, who said it would allow inmates to have gender-reassignment surgery.

The DOC said its proposed regulations were required to align with federal standards of care for transgender inmates. The agency also requested an opinion from Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman. Republicans blasted Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear over the proposed regulation, but the governor said he did not support providing gender-reassignment surgeries for inmates.

Another bill filed Friday and aimed at the transgender community was Senate Bill 116 of Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, a Louisville Republican.

Dubbed the “Kentucky Women's Bill of Rights,” SB 116 would state under law that “there are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female,” with sex determined at birth and not by gender identity. It adds that public entities “may distinguish between the sexes with respect to prisons and other detention centers, athletics, living facilities, locker rooms, bathrooms, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centers without violating antidiscrimination mandates.”

Discussing her bill on the Senate floor, Tichenor said it was revealed in a recent committee meeting “that men are actually in women's prisons as we speak in the state of Kentucky.” In a December committee meeting, when Corrections Commissioner Cookie Crews was asked if any transgender women were in women’s prisons, she answered in the affirmative, but did not know how many.

Hartman said he’s been told by the DOC that this is not the case, as there are no transgender women currently being held in any women’s detention facility. A spokesperson for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet told Kentucky Public Radio in an email that “men and women are housed separately” in state detention centers.

The Kentucky General Assembly passed a bill into law in 2023 that banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

Senate Republicans have designated SB 2 as a “priority bill” with its high number, indicating that it has strong support within the GOP caucus and is likely to clear that chamber. All 31 Republican senators have signed on as a co-sponsor.

The bill aligns with a nationwide Republican push for legislation targeting transgender children and adults, including President Donald Trump’s new executive orders to ban transgender women from participating in women's sports and block transgender people's access to bathrooms, medical care and legal documents that reflect their gender identity.

Correction: This story has been updated to correctly attribute Leah Boggs as the general counsel for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, and that all 31 Republican senators have signed on SB 2.
Clarification: This story has been updated to include additional information about transgender women in women’s prisons.

State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.