9-Year-Old Transgender Boy’s Family Sues North Carolina
The News & Observer.The law bans minors from accessing gender-affirming treatments and threatens medical providers who assist transgender minors in accessing them with the loss of their license.
It also prohibits state funds, including Medicaid dollars, from being used to cover the cost of gender-affirming care. The law took effect on August 16 after the state’s Republican-led legislature overrode a veto by Democratic Gov.
Roy Cooper. The ban on transgender health care was one of several measures targeting the transgender community that were pushed through over Cooper’s objections, including a “Don’t Say Gay”-style law, a law requiring schools to “out” transgender students to their parents, and a bill barring transgender athletes from competing on female-designated sports teams.In addition to North Carolina, 21 other states have passed some form of restrictions on minors’ ability to access gender-affirming care.In June, a federal judge found a nearly identical ban in Arkansas to be unconstitutional.
Several other state bans have been blocked by federal judges, only to subsequently be overturned by conservative appeals courts, including the 6th Circuit and 11th Circuit.“Trans youth deserve the ability to be themselves and to be free from discrimination,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with Lambda Legal, representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Parents should not have their rights curtailed because their children are transgender.
