Transgender rights activists occupied the Oklahoma State Capitol’s rotunda on Monday to protest a push by Republicans to limit so-called gender-affirming care in the state.

About 150 people, many holding signs and banners, chanted “Trans Lives Matter” ahead of a new legislative session in which GOP lawmakers had pre-filed bills aimed at curtailing treatments like hormone replacement therapy, The Oklahoma Daily reported.

One of the new proposals, Senate Bill 129, would ban healthcare professionals in the Sooner State from referring anyone under 26 for gender-affirming care, including both surgical and non-surgical interventions.

The second bill, Senate Bill 252, aims to prevent anyone under 18 from undergoing a sex change operation.

The bills are part of a slew of recent gender-related proposals in the state, including one signed into law last year by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt that banned trans women from competing in women’s school sports.

In his State of the State address on Monday, Stitt called for a statewide ban on gender affirmation surgeries and other treatments for minors, The Oklahoma Daily said.

Trans rights activists told the outlet on Monday that the proposed legislation was misguided, and would likely have deadly consequences for Oklahoma’s LGBTQIA+ community.

“Lawmakers fear the trans community as if trans people are coming for their kids, but in reality, trans people just want to live and mind their business,” said one demonstrator, identified only as Laine.

She also claimed that even restricting access to non-surgical treatment would be harmful.

“For a lot of trans people, small things like [hormone replacement therapy] just help trans people feel more like themselves,” she explained.

Other protestors claimed limiting access to such resources threatens trans individuals’ mental health.

A recent survey by the Trevor Project found that 59% of trans men, 48% of trans women, and 53% of nonbinary people had considered suicide in the past year. Research by Columbia University, however, found that gender-affirming care consistently improved mental health outcomes for trans and nonbinary young people.

“Working to ban HRT and other trans healthcare is active genocide,” Bejamin Patterson, a trans man, told The Oklahoma Daily.

“People will not survive to 26 to get that. For a lot of us, it is one of the only things that can help us feel at home in our body.”