Federal Judge Permanently Blocks Arkansas Law Banning Gender-Affirming Care
A federal judge has permanently blocked Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation law banning gender-affirming care for minors, signaling a major victory for LGBTQ advocates as a growing number of Republican-led states adopt similar restrictions.
U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. on Tuesday ruled that the state of Arkansas violated several sections of the U.S. Constitution when it banned all gender-affirming treatments for people under 18.
In his 80-page ruling, Moody says depriving transgender minors of treatments like hormone therapy would cause them irreparable harm, and that delaying care until adulthood would force teens to go through changes inconsistent with their gender identity.
The verdict comes after an eight-day trial in December where several of the state’s witnesses admitted in court that they didn’t have any experience treating transgender teens, and failed to offer evidence to dispute decades of well-established scientific research. “Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the State undermined the interests it claims to be advancing,” the ruling reads. “The testimony of well-credentialed experts, doctors who provide gender-affirming medical care in Arkansas, and families that rely on that care directly refutes any claim by the State that the Act advances an interest in protecting children.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the suit on behalf of families of transgender teens and two physicians after Arkansas became the first state in the nation to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors when lawmakers passed Act 626 in 2021.
