Trans North Dakota doctor is opening gender-affirming clinic for LGBTQ+ people ... trends now A trans doctor who is based in North Dakota is opening a clinic to provide a gender-affirming clinic for all LGBTQ+ people regardless of age as state legislators push a bill banning the practice for minors in the state. In an interview with the Grand Forks Herald Dr. Mayson Bedient, who identifies as a trans person and uses he/they pronouns: 'A couple of the patients that I've met have been really excited that I'm a transgender provider. 'I’ve been there myself, so it's kind of exciting for them to have somebody who really understands it,' he added. North Dakota lawmakers will consider other bills this session that would obstruct transgender and non-binary people from using their preferred pronouns, criminalize doctors providing gender-affirming care, deter transgender youth from joining school sports teams, penalize drag-show performers, and more. Dr. Mayson Bedient, who identifies as a trans person and uses he/they pronouns: 'A couple of the patients that I've met have been really excited that I'm a transgender provider' According to Bedient, a native of rural New York who went to medical school in West Virginia, as a result of some of the proposed legislation, physicians would be made to answer to services that he provided in the past. He said: 'As a doctor, it’s tough to hear that these legislators think they know better than I do how to take care of people.' He also said that thanks to laws such as the ones being pushed by Republicans in his state, good doctors are being pushed away from North Dakota. Bedient continued: 'It’s hard … as a transgender person, particularly, to go through this year after year, cycle after cycle, and hear the things that are said.' Bedient is an all-ages family medicine doctor based in Fargo who opened a practice at a clinic named Essentia Health in December that will focus on gender-affirming care. The doctor said in his interview that he wants to provide care for everybody. He has provided gender-affirming care, such as mental health medications, organizing surgical consults, and administering hormone therapy. Since setting up their practice, Bedient has hired several staff members who support his vision. He told the Herald: 'Gender-affirming treatment is not something you’re going to find everywhere. There’s just a lot of doctors who aren’t comfortable with it or don’t practice it.' North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum's office has declined to comment on the proposed laws in the state Prior to moving into a primarily gender-affirming car, Bedient had been one of only two doctors serving a community of around 2,000 people in Webster, South Dakota. He told KELO in a separate interview: 'I felt like I needed a change as far as my career and my location. [I] felt like Essentia’s mission and the way they put things forward aligned with what I wanted to do.' During that interview, Bedient acknowledged that the new legislation may make it difficult for him to practice. However, he stated his belief that the new law could set a dangerous precedent. The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine said: 'If you start doing that with transgender care, where do you stop. It shouldn’t be anywhere. Nowhere should the law come between a doctor and a patient.' While working in South Dakota, Bedient worked with MyMarijuanaCards, a service that provides medical marijuana. Bedient told the ACLU's website in a February 2022 interview that he moved to South Dakota in 2017 and that he lives with his cats while counting himself as a fan of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team. 'I am not an outdoorsy person, I don’t hunt or fish, so I’m as confused as everyone else about why I chose to come here of all places.' In that interview, the doctor said that he felt 'strongly' about issues such as the abortion debate and social justice but that his main area of interest was in LGBTQ+ rights issues. Among the laws that legislators are trying to pass is a law banning those born as male to compete in women's sport, an issue that transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, above, has been at the center of In January, North Dakota lawmakers rejected a bill that would have made people pay $1,500 each time they refer to themselves or others with gender pronouns different from the ones they were assigned at birth. 'The main purpose of the bill was to eliminate state funding for entities including education that would promote, allow or support the ideology of transgenderism,' said Republican sponsor Sen. David Clemens, of West Fargo. Others testified at a Wednesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the bill is designed to discriminate, and could impact the state’s behavioral health providers. The vote tally came to 39 senators against the bill and eight in favor. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee had said they agreed with the bill’s purpose, but that it was poorly written and would be difficult to enforce. It would also have harmed people who do not identify as transgender and would possibly violate First Amendment rights, they said. Rahrich, who testified against the bill, said he lived in North Dakota until he was 25 but moved away in 2016 after “a series of escalating brushes” with anti-LGBTQ violence. 'I could wax poetic about the rolling prairie, or how much I miss the enormity of the sky,' he said about North Dakota. 'But what I can’t do is compel you to see me as a human being.' All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility