TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Senate health committee voted Monday to advance legislation that will protect gender-affirming care in the state after other states have sought restrictions, emboldened by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The 5-2 vote came after two hours of emotional testimony from transgender New Jerseyans and allies, including 15-year-old Lucy Amato of Marlton in Burlington County.

“Many will never truly comprehend the severity of the distress that comes with gender dysphoria until you have looked in a mirror and seen a body that isn’t yours, until you’ve spoken and heard a voice that isn’t yours, until you felt like a prisoner in your own skin, until your own body parts have felt like nothing but a heavy burden,” said Amato, who has used they/them pronouns since the fourth grade.

The bill would legally protect gender-affirming care in New Jersey — both for residents and people traveling to the state — and make it a crime to intervene against such care.

Gender-affirming care encompasses a wide variety of care such as counseling or medication that delays puberty and has been widely viewed by major medical associations as medically necessary.

As much as New Jersey is considered LGBTQ+ friendly, it lags behind other states that have already implemented shield laws for gender-affirming care.

Amato’s mother, Indira Amato, a primary care general pediatrician in Gibbsboro in Camden County and Sewell in Gloucester County, noted that gender-affirming care is “individualized health care provided by highly trained clinicians.”

Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill has not publicly endorsed the bill and did not explicitly defend transgender rights during last year’s heated campaign, which frustrated members of the community even though many said they understood why. The politically fraught issue failed to move forward in Trenton last year partly because of the election.

Advocates say the governor has privately indicated support, and her record in Congress was largely in line with protecting trans rights. Sherrill declined to comment on pending legislation earlier this year but told The Inquirer she is “is very supportive of keeping people safe with both protections and privacy rights.”

After years of delay, the issue appears to be moving forward in Trenton with a new speed. In addition to the Senate bill, the Assembly Health Committee scheduled a hearing on the issue for Thursday.

“This is definitely the moment that we’ve been waiting for, and really, our community deserves this chance to be heard,” said L.B., a South Jersey parent of a transgender kid who did not testify and was granted anonymity for her child’s privacy.

Natalie Baker, a therapist with transgender clients who lives in Woolwich in Gloucester County, said her 15-year-old transgender daughter chose to go to boarding school out of state where she believes her health care is safer than in New Jersey.

“Every week, I sit with people asking very basic human questions: ‘Am I safe? Will I be allowed to exist as myself? Will I lose access to health care?’” she said.

On the other hand, Nathan Rodriguez, an Atlantic County resident and the executive director of the Trans Equity Coalition title, said he often hears from transgender people in redder states who want to flee to the Garden State.

The bill, which was first introduced in 2024, would cement protections for providing and receiving gender-affirming care that Gov. Phil Murphy implemented through a 2023 executive order. It groups together gender-affirming care with other reproductive care.

As law, the policy will have broader authority than the order, said Khadijah Silver, the director of gender justice and health equity at Lawyers for Good Government, who has worked on the bill. It also couldn’t be signed away with a stroke of a pen like an executive order.

Along with patients and providers, the bill would also legally protect entities like abortion funds as well as parents of transgender youth, Silver said.

Silver said that part of the holdup was due to ironing out technicalities and educating lawmakers amid a federal administration that has instilled “incredible fear” in legislators and a changing legal landscape.

D.H., another New Jersey parent of a transgender child who has been granted anonymity for her child’s privacy and did not testify Monday, has been terrified as she reads about high suicide rates among youth in states with gender-affirming care restrictions, and hears the president accuse parents like her of child abuse. She was among the parents, transgender New Jerseyans, and allies who repeatedly told their stories to legislators from Cape May and Camden Counties up to North Jersey while seeking sponsors for the bill.

"I want to know that this is a safe place to raise my child," D.H. said in a Friday interview.

Under the bill, New Jersey would not cooperate with other states like Texas and Louisiana that are trying to enforce bans across state lines, said Silver, who called it a “coordinated cold civil war between states over whether people have bodily autonomy or don’t.”

Republican Sen. Holly Schepisi, who voted against the bill, said she has concerns about minors receiving gender-affirming care because of an increase in young people openly identifying as transgender but that she hopes “children who are in fact truly transgender do get all the support and help and medical treatment that they need.”

Advocates from the “parental rights” movement took issue with the concept as a whole.

“You’re saying, ‘come to our state and get surgeries that will ruin your life,’ that’s what y’all are doing,” said Victoria Jakelsky, director of New Jersey Parental Rights.

Some of the trans allies who have been pushing for the bill led the fight for marriage equality in New Jersey, like Louise Walpin, a member of one of the first same-sex couples to wed in the state in 2013.

Walpin said in an interview that community members sharing their stories as well as nuances around language are important in both causes. What’s different with this fight, she said, is that it’s about life or death.

“We definitely needed those rights, but it wasn’t going to kill us,” she said of marriage equality. “This is health care.”

Jennifer Williams, who serves on the Trenton City Council and became the first transgender person elected to a New Jersey municipal council in 2022, said in an an interview Friday she’s “cautiously optimistic.”

Williams, who describes herself as a “moderate Reagan Republican,” is a longtime advocate for protecting care in the state.

“A lot of parents, a lot of other transgender people, having tried to educate folks on why this bill is important, a lot of folks were beginning to give up along the way,” she said. “I think this moment will allow them to believe again.”

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