Criminalizing Gender-Affirming Care For Minors
The court ruled that the ban on measures such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers appears to be discriminatory and violates the constitutional rights of both parents and children.
“Parent Plaintiffs have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children,” said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Liles C. Burke of the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division. “This right includes the more specific right to treat their children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards. The Act infringes on that right.”
Citing legal precedents, Burke, who was appointed by Donald Trump, noted that “a parent’s right to ‘make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children’ is one of the ‘oldest of fundamental liberty interests’ recognized by the Supreme Court.”
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal judge on Friday blocked part of an Alabama law that made it a felony to prescribe gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones to transgender minors.
U.S. District Judge Liles Burke issued a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the medication ban, which took effect May 8, while a court challenge goes forward. The judge left in place other parts of the law that banned gender-affirming surgeries for transgender minors, which doctors had testified are not done on minors in Alabama. He also left in place a provision that requires counselors and other school officials to tell parents if a minor discloses that they think they are transgender.
The Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act made it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to prescribe or administer gender-affirming medication to transgender minors to help affirm their new gender identity.
