Onlookers appalled by Arkansas state legislator’s transphobic question to doctor

People watching testimony in the Arkansas state legislature on a bill that would allow pepole who recieved gender-affirming care as a minor to sue their doctor audibly gasped on Wednesday when a Republican senator asked a transgender doctor whether she has a penis.

“You said that you’re a woman?” State Sen Matt McKee asked Dr Gwendolyn Herzig, a transgender doctor testifying against the bill.

“A trans female, yes sir,” Dr Herzig responded.

“Do you have a penis?” Mr McKee asked.

Dr Herzig appeared shocked at the transphobic question and took a moment to collect herself before calling the question “horrible.”

Around her in the hearing room, a number of the audience members gasped when Mr McKee asked the question and then yelled out in condemnation of the remark. Mr McKee then defended himself by telling Dr Herzig that she “brought that into the dicussion,” to which Dr Herzig responded that she’d never said anything about genitalia and told him that the question was “highly inappropriate.”

Mr McKee is a presumed supporter of Senate Bill 199, which would extend the period during which Arkansans who recieved gender-affirming care as minors can file medical malpractice claims against their doctor. The bill would amend the typical two years to 30 years after they turn 18.

The bill is another in a series of transphobic pieces of legislation that transgender Arkansans have faced over the last two years. The state passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender children in 2021, which was then challenged as unconstitutional and temporarily blocked from going into effect. A ruling on the legality of the law from US District Judge James Moody Jr is expected in the coming days.

Moments before being asked about her genitalia in a public state legislative hearing, Dr Herzig had testified that transgender people in Arkansas suffer from a lack of empathy from too many in the state.

Earlier this week, a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than half of LGBTQ+ high school students experienced poor mental health in the prior 30 days and more than one in five had attempted suicide in the last year.

Across the country, states have introduced and passed a raft of anti-transgender legislation in the last two-plus years that targets people’s ability to participate in sports and get healthcare. Further proposed legislation in Texas would limit who can attend drag shows.

This latest bill in Arkansas appears designed in part to dissuade doctors from providing gender-affirming care, a potentially critical step if the state’s ban on gender-affirming care is determined to be unconstitutional.

On Twitter, users also reacted in horror to Mr McKee’s question.

“Absolutely sickening,” Harvard University law instructor Alejandra Caraballo wrote. “Arkansas State senator Matt McKee asked a trans person at a legislative hearing “do you have a penis?” Does this State Senator have any basic human decency?”

The state Democratic Party wrote in its tweet that another lawmaker suggested that gender-affirming care is a “TikTok plot from China.”