The news
A Missouri state judge on Friday denied a request to temporarily block a state law passed this year that restricts sex-related medical treatments for minors. The ruling was issued by Missouri Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer, three days before the ban was set to take effect. A legal challenge to the ban brought by civil rights groups is ongoing.
Why It Matters: Young people and older adults tend to have difficulty accessing gender-related health care.
Under Missouri law, clinicians will not be allowed to treat any minor who has not received gender transition care, which includes drugs that prevent puberty; hormone treatments with estrogen or testosterone; and, in rare cases, operations. Minors currently receiving care may continue to do so.
The law will also be affected transgender adults, because it prohibits Medicaid coverage of gender transition care for people of all ages in the state. The law has a “sunset” provision and will be in effect for four years.
The legal challenge to Missouri’s ban has been particularly high-profile. A whistle-blower from a pediatric gender clinic in the state, Jamie Reed, said earlier this year that doctors at the clinic were rushing to prescribe hormones with long-term effects to young people with gender problems. psychiatric. Ms. filed. Reed filed an affidavit about his experience in February and testified Tuesday in favor of the ban.
Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old who has often testified before state legislatures about regretting the gender-based treatment she received as a child in California, also testified on behalf of the state of Missouri against the order.
The plaintiffs in the legal challenge include three transgender minors seeking medical care to transition and will no longer be able to do so when the law takes effect. The plaintiffs also include state doctors and two national LGBTQ advocacy organizations. Doctors who violate the new law could lose their medical licenses or be sued.
According to the Williams Institute, a research center at the UCLA School of Law, an estimated 2,900 minors in Missouri identify as transgender.
Background: Legal challenges have seen mixed results recently.
At least 20 states have banned or severely restricted transitional care for transgender minors in a flurry of legislation, led by Republicans. Most of the bans were passed in this year’s legislative session.
Legal challenges have been brought by civil rights groups in at least 13 states. In June, a judge struck down the ban in Arkansas — the first such law passed in the United States — arguing that the law unfairly excluded transition care and transgender children. The ruling is a significant victory for transgender minors and their families. On Friday, a state district court judge in Texas temporarily blocked a law that would have banned sex-related treatments for minors.
But a series of legal setbacks clouded the picture. In August, a federal appellate panel ruled that a similar ban in Alabama could be enforced while the case is pending. Other disagreements in the courts have signaled that these cases may be decided by the United States Supreme Court.
The American Academy of Pediatrics last month reaffirmed its position that these types of medical treatments are beneficial for many young people, and have strongly opposed any government interference in medical decisions it says are best made by parents and doctors. But the group also took the unusual step of commissioning a review of medical research into the treatments.
What’s Next: The legal challenge continues as the law takes effect.
The law would bar any new patients from receiving gender-affirming treatments while the case is heard in state court next year. And it would continue to restrict Medicaid coverage for an estimated 12,400 transgender people in the state.
Judge Ohmer, who usually presides over juvenile cases, wrote that the science supporting sex-related medication for youth is “conflicted and unclear,” adding that “the evidence is revealing more questions rather than answers.”
In response to the decision, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri said it would continue to fight to overturn the ban: “The case is not over and will go to a full trial on the merits.”