ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's Senate passed two bills Monday that would ban most gender-affirming care for minors and people incarcerated in state prisons, mirroring moves by Republicans across states and a handful of executive orders by President Donald Trump targeting transgender people.
The chamber voted 34-19 for a bill that would ban puberty blockers and most gender-affirming care for people under 18, including those already undergoing treatment. Georgia lawmakers in 2023 banned most gender-affirming surgeries and hormone replacement therapies for transgender minors unless they were already receiving treatment. The law lets doctors prescribe puberty blockers.
“You’re asking (minors) to make changes that will have changes to the rest of their lives,” bill sponsor Republican Sen. Ben Watson, of Savannah, said Monday. “It is not a fair decision to them. It is not a fair decision to the parents.”
A second bill sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson passed 37-15 and would ban most gender-affirming care for people incarcerated in state prisons.
Last month, the chamber passed bills to ban transgender people from playing in school sports and cut off public funding for gender-affirming care for adults. The four bills will now head to the House for debate.
Opponents said Republicans are playing politics by targeting transgender people and that lawmakers should focus on helping Georgians with more pressing issues such as housing and healthcare. They say both bills infringe on the rights of transgender people and their families to make decisions about gender-affirming care.
“This body has promulgated bill after bill attacking trans people with the ultimate goal of making trans fols disappear. We’ve been here before," said Senate Minority Whip Kim Jackson, a Stone Mountain Democrat who is openly lesbian.
At least 26 states have adopted laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors, and most are facing lawsuits. A study released in January found that fewer than 1 in 1,000 adolescents with commercial insurance during a five-year period received gender-affirming medications such as puberty blockers or hormones.
Jackson and other Democrats proposed a failed amendment to Watson’s bill that would let minors receiving treatment keep going to avoid the medical and emotional ramifications of stopping midway.
Sens. Elena Parent and Sonya Halpern, both Atlanta Democrats, reaffirmed their commitment to protecting the rights of transgender people but broke with their party to vote for Robertson’s bill because they said they do not think taxpayers should pay for gender-affirming care for people in prison. Parent proposed an amendment to make an exception for incarcerated people already undergoing hormone replacement therapy that failed.
“I will not let my party be dragged into an argument that makes us look out of touch with the very people we claim to represent,” Halpern said.
Sen. Sally Harrell, an Atlanta Democrat who has two transgender children, took the stand toward the end of the evening.
“It felt like we were debating a political football instead of people," Harrell said of a debate on the school sports bill. "And so I came to this well to remind people that we are talking about very real people — parents, children, families.”
Dawson Democrat Sen. Freddie Powell Sims voted for both bills. Four Democrats for the bill banning gender-affirming care for people in prison.
Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.
Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah) speaks in the Senate Chambers at the State Capitol, Monday, March, 3, 2025, in Atlanta. (Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah) speaks in the Senate Chambers at the State Capitol, Monday, March, 3, 2025, in Atlanta. (Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was in the restive southwestern Balochistan province on Thursday to meet survivors of a train attack and the commandos who rescued over 300 passengers from insurgents who killed 21 civilian and four troops.
The Baloch Liberation Army, an outlawed group behind multiple deadly attacks in recent months, claimed responsibility for the attack that began Tuesday and ended Wednesday when troops killed all 33 insurgents in an operation that the military said resulted in no further passenger deaths.
The train was heading from the Balochistan capital, Quetta, to the northern city of Peshawar when insurgents blew up the track, forcing nine coaches and the engine of the Jafer Express train to stop partially inside a tunnel.
The BLA regularly targets Pakistani security forces and has attacked trains, but had never been able to hijack any train in the past. They have also attacked outsiders such as Chinese workers, thousands of whom are involved in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects in Balochistan.
Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and least populated province. Members of the ethnic Baloch minority say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.
Amid tight security, Sharif and members of his Cabinet were received by senior government officials on his arrival at an airport in Quetta, his office said. It provided no further details. Authorities said arrangements were made to transport the bodies of victims to their hometowns and people who were wounded were receiving medical treatment.
Shafqat Ali Khan, the spokesman at Pakistan's ministry of foreign affairs, told reporters in Islamabad that BLA assailants who hijacked the train were in contact with their handlers in Afghanistan.
“Our security forces successfully eliminated all 33 terrorists, including suicide bombers, while rescuing the hostages,” he said.
Khan said the attackers had been "in direct communications with Afghanistan-based planners throughout the incident” and Pakistan has repeatedly asked Kabul “to deny the use of its soil for terrorist groups like BLA for their attacks against Pakistan.”
“We urge Afghanistan to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers, of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and cooperate with the government of Pakistan to bring all those who are concerned with this attack, including the real sponsors of terrorism to justice,” Khan said.
In an overnight statement, the military said it had “confirmed intelligence” indicating that the assault was “orchestrated and directed by terrorist ring leaders operating from Afghanistan, who were in direct communication with the terrorists throughout the incident.”
In Kabul, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected the Pakistani charges, saying: “We are saddened by the loss of life of innocents in the incident.”
However, the military in the statement urged the Afghan Taliban government to uphold its responsibilities and deny the use of its soil for terrorist activities against Pakistan.
According to a military statement, the “terrorists, after blowing up the railway track, took control of the train and held the passengers hostage including women, children and elderly, using them as human shields."
Many survivors said the assailants opened fire on the windows of the train, entered the cars and killed or wounded people before taking them hostage.
Three soldiers who had been guarding the railroad track were among those killed, according to military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif.
Seperately, Pakistani security killed 10 militants after spotting them near a military facility in South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, officials said.
Authorities said those killed were members of Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTT. The group is an ally of the Taliban in Afghanistan and has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power there in 2021.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
Rescue workers transport the coffin of a victim of the train attack, upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Rescue workers gather around coffins containing the bodies of victims following a train attack upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Mourners unload the casket of a victim of the train that was attacked by insurgents, for a funeral prayer in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Mourners carry the coffin of a victim of the train attack, for a funeral prayer in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Mourners gather around a casket of a victim of the train attack, for a funeral prayer in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
An injured victim of a passenger train attacked by insurgents, shifts to another ward after receiving initial treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
An injured victim of a passenger train attacked by insurgents, receives treatment upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Rescue workers transport a coffin containing the body of a victim from a passenger train attacked by insurgents, upon arrival at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
An injured victim of a passenger train attacked by insurgents, receives treatment upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
An injured victim of a passenger train attacked by insurgents, receives treatment upon arrival at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
Ambulances wait for the arrival of the bodies of victims from a passenger train attacked by insurgents at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Rescue workers transport a coffin containing the body of a victim from a passenger train attacked by insurgents, upon arrival at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Rescue workers transport a coffin containing the body of a victim from a passenger train attacked by insurgents, upon arrival at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Passengers rescued by security forces from a passenger train attacked by insurgents arrive at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Passengers rescued by security forces from a passenger train attacked by insurgents arrive at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Rescue workers transport a coffin containing the body of a victim from a passenger train attacked by insurgents, upon arrival at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Passengers rescued by security forces from a passenger train attacked by insurgents arrive at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Passengers rescued by security forces from a passenger train attacked by insurgents arrive at a railway station in Much, Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, Thursday March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
