Court allows Alabama’s “devastating” ban on gender-affirming care to go into effect

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth to go into effect. The ban had been tied up in legal challenges since Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed it into law in 2022. A full trial on the law’s constitutionality won’t occur until August 2024.

The law, titled the “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” prohibits minors from receiving gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone-replacement therapy. Any doctor who “prescribes or administers” such treatments can get charged with a felony punishable with up to 10 years in jail and a possible loss of their medical license.

Related:

Ohio House overrides governor’s veto of trans care & sports bans

Ohio will soon become the 24th state to ban trans girls from playing school sports.

In May 2022, U.S. District Judge Liles Burke blocked the law’s enforcement after families of trans children said it violated their constitutional rights. However, last August federal appeals court reversed the district judge’s injunction, allowing it to go into effect.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

But the plaintiffs in the case asked the appeals court’s full panel to review the case, preventing the ban from going into effect. Plaintiffs said the ban violates parents’ longstanding right to make medical decisions for their kids and conflicts with legal precedent and dictating that all laws discriminating based on sex should be subjected to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) wrote.

Alabama Attorney Steve Marshall responded to the plaintiff’s request by asking the court in November to allow the law to go into effect. He called the plaintiff’s request for an injunction pending the full-panel review “a delay tactic,” AL.com reported.

Marshall responded to the appeals court’s Thursday decision, writing, “The physical and psychological safety of our children can now be better protected from these untested and life-altering chemical and surgical procedures.”

His statement is disingenuous, however, since minors rarely ever undergo gender-affirming surgeries and cisgender minors have safely taken the medications used in gender-affirming care for decades. Most major U.S. medical and psychiatric associations say that gender-affirming care is safe and essential to the well-being of trans minors.

Lawyers representing parents of transgender adolescents said, “Alabama’s transgender healthcare ban will harm thousands of transgender adolescents across the state and will put parents in the excruciating position of not being able to get the medical care their children need to thrive.”

Mentioning the “devastating impact of this ban and the lack of any medical justification for it,” the plaintiff’s lawyers added, “We will continue to challenge this unlawful ban and to support parents and their kids in pushing back against the dangerous reality of being denied access to necessary, best practice medical care.”

Alabama is one of 22 states that ban trans minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care. Several appeals courts nationwide will hear arguments over similar bans in Indiana, Idaho, and Oklahoma. Plaintiffs in legal challenges against Kentucky and Tennessee’s bans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of such bans.

The plaintiffs in the Alabama case are being represented by GLAD, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).