Federal appeals court hears arguments on nation’s first ban on gender-affirming care for minors

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Arguments before a federal appeals court that is considering whether to reinstate Arkansas’ first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for minors focused Thursday on whether it and similar restrictions adopted by two dozen states discriminate on the basis of sex.

Ten judges with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard arguments over a judge’s ruling last year that struck down the ban as unconstitutional. The 2021 law would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18.

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law on behalf of four transgender youths and their parents, said the restriction infringes on the longstanding rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s medical care.

“Arkansas believed that that government knew better than the loving parents in this case what was best for their minor children,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, told the court. “That burdens that longstanding right of parents to direct the medical care of their children.”

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