Judge reverses Arkansas ban on transition assistance for minors

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down an Arkansas law that would have banned transition-related medical care for transgender minors, ruling it unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. of the Eastern District of Arkansas overturned and permanently blocked the law from taking effect, writing that it violates the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses.

Rather than protect children or safeguard medical ethics, the evidence has shown that prohibited medical treatments improve patients’ mental health and well-being, and that by prohibiting them, the state has undermined the interests it claims to promote, Moody wrote.

The case was the first filed against the gender-affirming care ban, and the decision marks the first time a judge has overturned such a law.

While Moody’s decision only applies to Arkansas, it could have ripple effects across the country, as similar restrictions became law in 19 other states and even more states considered them.

The Arkansas law, passed after the majority Republican legislature overrode former Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto in April 2021, would have prohibited doctors from providing gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. and prevented them from referring minors to other providers.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued in May 2021 on behalf of four trans minors and their parents, as well as two doctors who provide gender-affirming health care, claiming it violates the Constitution.

State attorneys drew on five arguments in support of the law, in Moody’s opinion. They argued that there is a lack of evidence to support gender-affirming child care, that banned treatment has harmful side effects, that many patients will desist or stop identifying as trans as they get older, that some patients will regret their transitions, and that doctors they are providing care without thorough evaluation and informed consent.

However, Moody’s wrote, the evidence presented at trial does not support these claims. She said the state’s arguments did not explain why only gender-affirming health care and all gender-affirming health care is prohibited.

Testimony from well-recognized experts, physicians who provide gender-affirming health care in Arkansas, and families who rely on such care directly refute any state claims that the law promotes an interest in child protection, Moody’s wrote.

If the law were to go into effect, it would cause irreparable harm to the four trans youths, their parents and the doctors represented in the lawsuit, he wrote.

Plaintiff Dylan Brandt, 17, a transgender boy, said Tuesday in a statement he was grateful the judge heard my experience about how this health care changed my life for the better and saw the dangerous impact this law could have on my life and that of countless other transgender people.

My mother and I wanted to fight this law not only to protect my health care but also to ensure that transgender people like me can safely and fully live our truths, Brandt said. Transgender children across the country are having their future threatened by laws like this, and it’s up to all of us to speak up, react, and give them hope.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, condemned the judges’ decision in a tweet and said on Tuesday that Attorney General Tim Griffin plans to appeal to the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It doesn’t care that its activists push a political agenda at the expense of our kids and subject them to permanent and harmful procedures, Sanders said. Only in far-left America’s waking vision is it not appropriate to protect children.

Judges temporarily blocked similar restrictions in Alabama, Florida and Indiana. Oklahoma also agreed to defer enforcing its law pending the outcome of the litigation.