Chris Christie just became one of the country’s most far-left governors on issues pertaining to “transgender rights,” Save Jerseyans.
The nominally Republican governor signed two bills on Friday.
The first (A4652) bars school districts from compelling transgender students to use facilities incompatible with their so-called “gender identity,” a topic which has riled local school boards in recent months. It’s a reversal from 2015 when Chris Christie was still running for president and consequently vetoed legislation permitting state residents to amend their birth certificates’ gender designation. It’s also a move in the opposite direction of President Trump’s Department of Education.
“It strikes me as not something I’d sign here in New Jersey,” said Christie in 2016 regarding North Carolina’s controversial bathroom law. “But I don’t know all the specifics of it. So I don’t want to assail another piece of legislation I haven’t even read.”
The second (A-4568/S-3017) “prohibits health insurers, SHBP, SEHBP, certain health care providers, and Medicaid from discriminating in providing coverage and services based on gender identity.” [the Governor’s office’s description.]
New Jersey will now mandate that most Garden State health care plans cover the cost of gender transitions, a move guaranteed to drive New Jersey’s high-end insurance premiums ever-higher. The transition-related care now mandated by the state does not extend to the self-funded marketplace.
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