'Victory' as federal judge blocks Arkansas gender-affirming care ban

Human rights defenders on Tuesday welcomed a ruling by a federal judge in Arkansas overturning that state's law banning gender-affirming healthcare for children and teenagers, the first time such a prohibition has been struck down in the United States.

"This decision sends a clear message. Fear-mongering and misinformation about this health care do not hold up to scrutiny; it hurts trans youth and must end," ACLU of Arkansas executive director said Holly Dickson in a statement. "Science, medicine, and law are clear: gender-affirming care is necessary to ensure these young Arkansans can thrive and be healthy."

Judge James M. Moody Jr. of Federal District Court in Little Rock wrote in his 80-page ruling in Brandt v. Rutledgethat Arkansas' law discriminated against transgender people and violated doctors' constitutional rights. Then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, vetoed the bill after its approval by the GOP-controlled Legislature; however, lawmakers subsequently overrode the veto.

Moody also found that Arkansas officials had failed to substantially prove claims, including that gender-affirming healthcare is carelessly prescribed to youth and is "experimental."

"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.

"Further, the various claims underlying the state's arguments that the act protects children and safeguards medical ethics do not explain why only gender-affirming medical care—and all gender-affirming medical care—is singled out for prohibition," the judge added. "The testimony of well-credentialed experts, doctors who provide gender-affirming medical care in Arkansas, and families that rely on that care directly refutes any claim by the state that the act advances an interest in protecting children."

At least 19 other states have passed legislation limiting or banning gender-affirming care for minors, with federal judges temporarily blocking similar laws in Alabama and Indiana.