LEXINGTON, Ky. — During the last week of Kentucky’s 2025 legislative session, many bills are still awaiting action; a signature or a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky. A few bills in this session pertain to transgender rights and limiting access to hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgeries.

What You Need To Know

  • Numerous anti-trans bills were passed in the 2025 legislative session 

  • Bills aim to ban Medicaid from covering hormone therapy, prohibit inmates from receiving hormones and house trans inmates in facilities which match their biological sex

  • Transgender Kentuckians say the General Assembly has waged war on a small community 

  • Emma Curtis, the only openly trans person currently holding public office, said lawmakers put special interest groups above everyday Kentuckians 

In the last week before veto period, lawmakers sent hundreds of bills to the governor’s desk. Among them, bills prohibiting inmates from receiving cross-sex hormones and a bill barring Medicaid from hormone replacement therapy, even if it’s prescribed by a doctor.

Mason Kalinsky and Emma Curtis are two lifelong Kentuckians living in Lexington and both are transgender. House Bill 495 overturns Gov. Beshear’s executive order banning conversion therapy and bans Medicaid from covering prescribed hormone therapy for trans individuals.

“That’s something that I have directly benefited from, and it’s something that saved my life. I was on Medicaid and received hormone replacement therapy as an adult, as deemed necessary by my doctor, and I don’t know what I’d do now,” Curtis said.

Kalinsky, a trans man, said once someone is prescribed hormones, the treatment is usually lifelong and there isn’t enough research as to what happens when someone abruptly quits hormone replacement therapy. But he believes a lack of access to the treatment puts trans Kentuckians’ lives at risk.

“I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me on social media who are actively suicidal, who are worried about what their life is going to look like now that they don’t have access to hormones,” Kalinsky said.

Among other things, lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 2, which bans cross-sex hormone prescriptions to inmates and House Bill 392, which requires transgender inmates to be housed in facilities aligning with their biological sex. Curtis is the only openly trans public official currently serving and a Lexington councilwoman.

“If these were issues that were popular, you wouldn’t see the General Assembly rushing to pass them in the cover of darkness, in the last hour that they possibly could before the end of session,” Curtis said.

Curtis and Kalinsky say the General Assembly has waged war on a small number of Kentucky’s overall population.

“I think this is a waste of time. I wish that our legislators would worry about the issues that Kentuckians actually care about, like whether they can afford to live and whether their house is flooded and whether they have food to eat,” Kalinsky said.

“I think the passage of these bills is emblematic of what happens in legislative bodies that fundamentally doesn’t understand trans people because they don’t know trans people,” Curtis said.

Republicans argue tax dollars should not go to what they call elective procedures. On Senate Bill 2 State Senator Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said, “This is not something people would want their taxpayer money spent on because it’s not a necessary service,” Wilson said.

Curtis said the trans community isn’t going anywhere.

“We aren’t afraid of a fight. We’re not ready to back down,” Curtis said.

Sixty-seven inmates in Kentucky prisons are receiving cross-sex hormones. Medicaid in Kentucky has never covered gender reassignment surgeries.

The state public safety cabinet reports no inmates have ever received gender reassignment surgery while behind bars.

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