Alabama court refuses to reconsider ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth

Alabama’s law banning life-saving gender-affirming care for trans youth remains in effect after a federal appeals court refused to reconsider the decision. 

On Wednesday night (28 August), a majority of judges on the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals declined the request by families of trans teens and doctors who previously filed a lawsuit against the state to challenge the law. 

The restrictive and threatening law makes it a felony for healthcare workers to provide life-saving gender-affirming treatments, including prescribing puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and gender-affirming surgeries to trans youth. 

The Alabama law means it is punishable by up to 10 years in prison to treat trans youth under the age of 19 via such gender-affirming treatment.

U.S. Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum said: “The panel opinion is wrong and dangerous. Make no mistake: while the panel opinion continues in force, no modern medical treatment is safe from a state’s misguided decision to outlaw it, almost regardless of the state’s reason.”

On 29 August, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said that the decision to deny trans youth essential gender-affirming care in the state “is a big win to protect children” from “life-altering chemical and surgical procedures”.

Meanwhile, the families’ lawyers said in a joint statement regarding the damaging decision: “Families, not the government, should make medical decisions for children. The evidence presented in the case overwhelmingly showed that the banned treatments provide enormous benefits to the adolescents who need them and that parents are making responsible decisions for their own children.”

The families’ lawyers are determined to “challenge” the decision, nonetheless. “We will continue to challenge this harmful measure and to advocate for these young people and their parents. Laws like this have no place in a free country.”

It comes as the US introduced over 250 new anti-LGBTQ+ bills in just the first few weeks of 2024, with many specifically targeting the trans community. 

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