An Idaho law prohibiting gender-affirming care services for trans people under the age of 18 has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. The legislation would have made it a crime to provide such care and was scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, 2024.
According to District Court Judge Lynn Winmill, the government’s regulations are against the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, including the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.
In his ruling, Winmill argued that transgender kids should be treated equally by the law. Parents should have the right to make the most important decisions regarding how to raise their children, according to this statement.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s main function, he continued, “is to defend marginalized groups and protect our fundamental freedom from congressional excess… and it is no less true for transgender children and their parents in the twenty-first century.”
Governor Brad Little signed HB 71 into law in April. The law forbids hormone therapies, surgeries, and puberty blockers, which allow kids to explore their gender identity and delay the development of permanent sex characteristics. Adolescent treatments are rare and only considered on a case-by-case basis, according to doctors interviewed by ABC News.
Children with a “medically verifiable biological disorder of sex development,” also referred to as intersex, are given an exception by the law.
According to the text of the law, any medical professional found guilty of providing such care may be convicted of a felony and sentenced to up to 10 years in state prison.
Access to gender-affirming care has been restricted in at least 20 states, many of which have faced legal challenges. A federal judge also declared the law in Arkansas, the first of its kind in the United States, to be illegal.
Following the bill’s signing, conservative Christian lobbying group Idaho Family Policy Center issued a press release arguing that these restrictions protect kids from “medically unnecessary interventions that result in irreversible infertility, serious health risks, and mutilated sexual organs.”
The young plaintiffs at the center of this case, who would be affected by the law, claim that access to gender-affirming care has been essential to their mental health. Numerous studies have expressed the same sentiment.
According to the CDC, transgender children are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and attempts at suicide, often as a result of gender-related discrimination and gender dysphoria. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, gender-affirming testosterone therapy has been shown to improve the mental wellbeing of transgender children and teenagers.
One plaintiff stated that puberty blockers “had near immediate positive effects” on her. According to Winmill’s decision, “by halting the bodily changes that were causing her distress and anxiety, her mental health significantly improved.”
After “some months of therapy, more doctor visits, and lab work,” the second plaintiff began taking puberty blockers. She started taking low-dose hormone therapy after a few months, according to the filing.
Jane’s mental health has significantly improved since receiving gender-affirming health care, but the controversy over HB 71 and other anti-transgender bills has had an impact on both her emotional and academic performance. Jane cried in the doorway at school after the bill was passed, and her parents had to drive her home. The Doe family has even considered leaving Idaho as a result of the bill’s passage so that Jane can continue to receive the medical treatment that has been so beneficial to her.
Gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary, according to a number of major national health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and more than 20 others.
Rights: ABC News Internet Ventures, 2023.
