Yesterday, the West Virginia House of Delegates approved an amendment from Del. J.B. Akers ® to allow a child’s “treating health care provider” to examine a child’s genitals without the consent of their parents.
The amendment was actually an improvement over a previous version of the bill, which, state Democrats argued, would have allowed teachers to perform the genital examinations.
Akers’ amendment was the Republican response to one proposed by Del. Kayla Young (D), which would have banned child and adult genital examinations altogether.
“It’s unconscionable that Republicans would support legislation that authorizes intrusive visual inspections of minors without parental approval,” Young said. “West Virginians should be alarmed and disgusted by this invasion of privacy.”
It also says that all intersex people are “either male or female” but does not give a basis for assigning a sex to them.
I think part if the motivation here would be to allow the doctor present at a school to determine whether a child is participating in the correct sex-appropriate placement. Like using the correct locker rooms or bathrooms in case teachers or other students bring up an issue (for example if a boy were to go into a girl’s locker room and claim to really be a girl). Since appearance doesn’t line up with sex in many cases nowadays, the inspection would be to determine the real sex of the individual. Some school activities will involve nudity (changing before entering a swimming pool, communal showering after a sports match or gym class, etc.) so the authors of this were initially pushing for any teacher (such as the supervisor in a locker room or the teacher of the associated class) to be able to inspect/determine the sex of the individual.