Monday, a court in Missouri upheld a new state law that bans some gender-affirming health care for children. This was a win for people who support the ban, even though lawsuits against similar bans in other states are still going on.
Andy Bailey, the Republican Attorney General of Missouri, said in a statement that his state is the “first in the nation to successfully defend such a law at the trial court level.” Bailey is in charge of defending the law in court. He tried to stop children from getting gender-affirming health care by changing the rules but gave up when the law passed.
As Bailey put it, “I’m very proud of the thousands of hours my office put in to show that these permanent procedures were not backed by evidence.” “We will never give up on making Missouri the safest state for kids in the country.”
The American Medical Association and all other major medical groups have spoken out against laws that would ban gender-affirming medical care for minors. They also back medical care for teens when it is done correctly.
The lawyers for the people who sued to remove the law, Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Missouri, said Monday that they will appeal the decision.
At least 26 states, including Missouri, have passed rules that limit or ban medical care that affirms a transgender minor’s gender.
The bans in Arkansas and Florida were thrown out by federal judges because they were unconstitutional. However, the Florida decision has been put on hold by a federal appeals court. In Montana, the rule can’t be enforced right now because of a judge’s order. New Hampshire is going to put limits on things in January 2025.
Under Missouri law, kids and teens under the age of 18 could not have gender-affirming surgeries. They also could not get hormones or drugs that stop puberty if they had not already started those treatments by August 2023. It’s over in August 2027.
Major medical groups agree that transgender people should be able to get these treatments because they are based on proof.
The law in Missouri still lets most people get gender-affirming medical care, but Medicaid won’t pay for it.
The claimants, who included the families of several transgender teens, said the law keeps transgender minors from getting medically necessary treatments while letting other kids get the same surgeries and medicines.
Judge Craig Carter of the Wright County Circuit Court didn’t agree. A judge in southern Missouri said in his decision that he thinks there is “an almost total lack of consensus as to the medical ethics of adolescent gender dysphoria treatment.”
“The evidence at trial showed that there was a lot of disagreement about whether or not drug and surgery treatment for gender dysphoria in teens was ethical at all, and if it was, how much treatment was ethical,” Carter wrote.
Lawyers for LGBT people and the ACLU of Missouri said in a statement that the decision shows that “compassion and equal access to health care are still out of reach for some.”
The groups said, “The court’s decisions show an unsettling willingness to tolerate discrimination, disregard a lengthy trial record and the voices of transgender Missourians and those who care for them, and deny transgender teens and Medicaid recipients their right to receive evidence-based, effective, and often life-saving medical care.”
Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. These states have passed laws that limit or ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
