JUST IN: A federal judge has struck down Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth, dealing the strongest blow yet to a state prohibition on such care
In an 80-page ruling, Judge James M. Moody Jr. said that the state’s “Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act” violated the US Constitution and that the 2021 law cannot be enforced by state officials. “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,” the judge wrote.
“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.” Moody had temporarily blocked the law from going into effect in July 2021, and an eight-day trial took place last year in the case.
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