Federal judge blocks Arkansas law banning transgender surgery/hormones for minors; 17 Republican states join

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – At the request of the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of families of transgender youth, on Wednesday a federal court in Arkansas blocked a new state law that would ban transgender surgery and hormones for minors under the age of 18, the Washington Times reports. Seventeen Republican states joined with Arkansas in defending the law, which would have gone into effect on July 28.

The ACLU filed suit with the Eastern District Court of Arkansas in order to block the law from going into effect. “If the Health Care Ban goes into effect, it will have devastating consequences for transgender youth in Arkansas. These young people will be unable to obtain medical care that their doctors and parents agree they need and those already receiving care will have their treatment abruptly halted which could have serious and potentially life-threatening consequences,” the ACLU said in its lawsuit.

The seventeen Republican states filed a brief in response, asserting that the law should be upheld. “Most cases of gender dysphoria in children resolve naturally with time, and it’s impossible to know ahead of time whose dysphoria will persist into adulthood and whose won’t,” the states said in their brief.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge wrote in the court papers that the law is a response to international concerns over experimental and drastic gender transitioning treatment in children, the Washington Times reports.

“Even when those procedures don’t involve invasive surgery, giving children puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones can have irreversible physical consequences — for instance, permanent infertility and destroying the ability of previously healthy sex organs to function,” Rutledge wrote.

Granting an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect while the case proceeds, Obama appointee Judge Jay Moody said: “To pull this care midstream from these patients, or minors, would cause irreparable harm.”

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