FRANKFORT, Ky. — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear denounced the Republican-led effort to ban Medicaid from funding gender-affirming care for transgender Kentuckians and to undo his executive order restricting the practice of “conversion therapy” on LGBTQ people.

The governor called the practice “equivalent of torture” in comments shared at his weekly press conference Thursday morning.

Conversion therapy is a widely discredited form of counseling that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Beshear’s order being targeted in the bill, House Bill 495, banned the use of tax dollars to pay for the practice but was not outright ban the practice in the state.

“Conversion therapy has been discredited by every major medical organization that’s looked at it,” Beshear said. “It significantly increases the chances of suicide amongst our LGBTQ-plus youth.

“It is equivalent of torture, and we should not be allowing it to happen here in the Commonwealth.”

On the Medicaid portion of the bill, Beshear offered some clarity on whether or not certain aspects of gender-affirming care were covered by Medicaid.

“In Medicaid, we allow medical experts to determine what is medically necessary. We don’t determine someone’s health care based on the politics of the day,” Beshear said.

Beshear also had choice words on the Medicaid portion of the bill and how it was inserted via committee substitute Wednesday; it is expected to pass the Senate.

He made a reference to previous GOP-backed efforts limiting vaccine mandates as antithetical to the spirit of House Bill 495.

“To me, this is a another example of the supermajority trying to stand in between a person and their doctor, and it adds on on things done last year where they were saying, ‘adults should have certain abilities to make healthcare decisions,’” Beshear said.

“Well, they appear to be going back on those statements or those beliefs here.”

He also offered a stark criticism, as his Democratic counterparts in the legislature have, of the increasing use of committee substitutes and floor amendments to dramatically change a bill before passing it through a chamber, sometimes before the new version is even publicly available online.

“Listen, if you think you’re passing the right things, you don’t have to hide it,” Beshear said. “It’s time to stop a lot of this ‘shell bill’ and committee substitute nonsense and embrace the people that elect you and allow them to actually see a transparent process.”

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