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A federal judge on Tuesday ruled an Arkansas law that bans hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery for transgender minors is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Jay Moody said that the first-in-the-nation law violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youth and their families and it violated the First Amendment rights of health care providers by prohibiting them from referring patients elsewhere.
“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,” Moody wrote.
Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said he was “disappointed” in the ruling and plans to appeal it to the Eight Circuit.
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Transgender teen Dylan Brandt speaking at a news conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo, File)
“I am disappointed in the decision that prevents our state from protecting our children against dangerous medical experimentation under the moniker of ‘gender transition,’” he wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, Judge Moody misses what is widely understood across the United States and in the United Kingdom and European countries: There is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent. I will continue fighting as long as it takes to stop providers from sterilizing children.”
Last year, the Eighth Circuit upheld Moody’s temporary block of the law in 2021.
The ban was enacted in 2021 after the state legislature overrode a veto by former Gov. Asa Hutchinson who argued the law went too far by blocking current patients from continuing treatment.
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“This…
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