HB495 is an emergency law that overturns Governor Andy Beshear’s 2024 executive order banning conversion therapy for minors. It reinstates the practice by protecting counselors and religious providers who offer it from professional discipline or loss of funding. The law also prohibits Medicaid from covering sex-change procedures—including hormones and surgeries—for adults.
The Kentucky State House of Representatives passed HB495 on March 27, 2025 by a vote of 78 to 20. We have assigned pluses to the ayes because this bill protects parental rights, religious liberty, and free speech for counselors and faith-based providers—rights safeguarded by the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. It also defends minors from harmful gender ideology. Neither healthcare nor social welfare is a legitimate government function. Medicaid and similar entitlement programs unjustly divert taxpayer dollars—often from hard-working citizens—to select low-income individuals, creating discriminatory and unsustainable burdens. Such programs exceed the limited powers granted under Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, and must be rejected.
