Judge Blocks Kentucky Ban on Transgender Health Care
temporary injunction prohibiting the state from seeking to enforce Section 4 of Senate Bill 150, a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill that, in addition to barring gender-affirming medical care for minors, restricts which restroom and locker room facilities transgender students can use, allowing teachers and other students to misgender trans-identifying minors, and prohibits certain types of classroom instruction on LGBTQ-related topics and topics related to sexuality, HIV, or other sexually-transmitted diseases.The measure was vetoed by Democratic Gov.
Andy Beshear in March over concerns that it infringed not only on LGBTQ students’ right to freedom of expression and equal protection under the law, but the parental rights parents who choose to affirm their children’s identities.In issuing the injunction, Hale sided with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which sued to overturn the law on behalf of seven families with transgender children.
The families say the law singles out transgender youth for discrimination, and limits parents’ right to make informed medical decisions for their own children.
The injunction, issued hours before the law was slated to take effect on June 29, prohibits the state from enforcing parts of the law seeking to block minors from accessing — with their parents’ consent — puberty blockers and hormone therapy, as well as mental health services on how to deal with their feelings of gender dysphoria.
