Colorado becomes first transgender tourism state: Democratic Gov signs bill that allows children to travel for puberty blockers — even if drugs are banned where they live 

Leading US medical authorities support so-called gender-affirming care for minors but conservatives and some experts argue children are too young to make irreversible changes to their bodies. 

The three bills that Gov Jared Polis signed into law on Friday also protect healthcare providers from being sued by neighboring states if their residents travel to Colorado for abortions.

Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma are among the red states that have severely restricted transgender care for minors and abortions. 

Gov Polis said: ‘Here in Colorado, we value individual freedoms, and we stand up to protect them…I’m excited by the work of advocates and legislators to further Colorado’s reputation as a beacon of freedom, a beacon of choice, a beacon of individuality where we live our own lives on our own terms in a Colorado for all.’

Democratic state Sen. Julie Gonzales added: ‘We see you and in Colorado, we’ve got your back.’

But Conservatives have pushed back on liberal efforts to make interstate travel for restricted healthcare easier.

Republican-controlled Idaho, for instance, has become the first state to pass a law explicitly restricting some out-of-state travel for abortions.

In Colorado, debates over the bills led by the Republican minority lasted more than 29 hours.

State and federal legislatures have taken to calling interstate travel for controversial healthcare ‘abortion tourism’, prompting Democrats to reinforce constitutional protections for free interstate travel.

Last year, Nevada Democratic Sen Catherine Cortez Masto introduced a bill called the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, which would make it unlawful for a person or a government official to prevent or punish traveling across state lines ‘to receive or provide reproductive health care that is legal in that State.’

Senate Republicans shot it down, calling it radical and an effort ‘to inflame’ the public and ‘raise the what-ifs.’

Democrat-led New Mexico passed a similar abortion protection bill earlier this year to legally shield people who seek abortions or gender-affirming care, and those who provide the treatments, from interstate investigations.

Colorado’s government has set itself apart among a largely Republican cluster of states in the Midwest where over the past few years transgender people’s access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and transition surgeries have become heavily restricted, and in the cases of care for minors, banned outright.

Fully expecting the Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 decision that guaranteed a right to abortion last spring, Polis and the Democratic-majority state legislature codified the right to the procedure into the state constitution, meaning any Coloradan who wants an abortion could get one regardless of the SCOTUS ruling.