Beshear vetoes Ky. bill protecting conversion therapy, blocking some adults trans health care

Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader on Mar 23, 2025

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Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has vetoed a bill that would have protected conversion therapy practices and denied Medicaid funds to pay for gender-affirming health care for transgender Kentucky adults.

Beshear vetoed House Bill 495 Saturday night at the Kentucky Fairness Campaign Dinner in Louisville in front of an audience who cheered as he did.

Before doing so, Beshear remembered his friend Thomas Elliott, who was killed during the mass shooting at the Old National Bank in 2023. The last text message Beshear received from Elliott was after the Fairness Campaign Dinner two years ago.

“The last text I ever sent him, on the way home, I said, ‘Tommy, how’d I do?’ And he texted back he was proud of me,” Beshear said. “He was so proud of me because his daughter is happily married to another woman.”

He said Elliott was watching down on the group Saturday night and he was ready to make him proud again.

“And I think I brought my veto pen,” Beshear teased.

After signing the veto document, he gave the pen up for auction.

The veto is unlikely to last, however.

The Republican-dominated legislature returns to Frankfort on Thursday, where lawmakers will have two days to override the governor’s vetoes.

Introduced by Rep. David Hale, R-Wellington, HB 495 was amended during a committee meeting in early March to ban Kentucky Medicaid program funds from paying for gender-affirming hormones or surgery for transgender adults.

The governor called the practice of conversation therapy “equivalent of torture” in comments shared at a previous weekly press conference.

Conversion therapy is a widely discredited form of counseling that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Beshear previously signed into place an executive order that restricted the practice.

Beshear’s order being targeted in the bill banned the use of tax dollars to pay for the practice but was not outright ban the practice in the state.

“Conversion therapy has been discredited by every major medical organization that’s looked at it,” Beshear said previously. “It significantly increases the chances of suicide amongst our LGBTQ-plus youth.

“It is equivalent of torture, and we should not be allowing it to happen here in the Commonwealth.”

This is not the first time Beshear has vetoed high-profile anti-LGBTQ legislation.

In 2023, the governor vetoed — and was overridden by the legislature — a bill that banned the practice of gender-affirming health care, like puberty blockers and hormones, for transgender minors.

And the year before that, Beshear vetoed a bill banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ or women’s sports from grades six through college. The legislature overrode his veto then, too.

Beshear became the first sitting Kentucky governor to speak at the statewide Fairness Rally in 2020.

Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman has also attended pride events throughout her tenure in office and stood next to Beshear as he signed the HB 495 veto Saturday.

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