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The
plaintiffs, allowed to proceed anonymously to guard against
reprisals, are seeking an injunction to stop Georgia's Senate
Bill 140, which prohibits doctors from treating minors with
hormone therapy to support their gender transitions.
A host of Georgia state health officials and agencies are named
as defendants.
Unlike other states, Georgia does not also ban puberty blockers,
typically the first medical intervention for transgender youth,
who normally would next receive hormone therapy.
"Allowing transgender adolescents the use of puberty blockers
while banning them from receiving hormonal care is constructing
a bridge to nowhere," said the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+
advocacy group that helped the families with the lawsuit along
with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern
Poverty Law Center.
Republican-led legislatures in 20 states have passed some type
of ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Lawsuits have
effectively blocked seven of those laws. Decisions on whether to
block such bans in Montana and now Georgia are pending.
When the Georgia Senate passed that state's bill in March, the
sponsor, state Senator Carden Summers, told the chamber that "we
are truly protecting the lives of children by not offering the
life-altering drugs and of course the surgeries that are
completely irreversible," according to the Georgia Recorder.
Major medical organizations and parents have disputed that
argument, calling gender-affirming care medically necessary and
sometimes life-saving.
Federal judges have found the bans violate the U.S.
Constitution's right to equal protection by discriminating
against trans people, as well as parents' right to make medical
decisions for their children.
On Wednesday, two more states had their laws enjoined, Kentucky
and Tennessee. Federal courts in Arkansas, Alabama, Florida and
Indiana previously blocked similar bans on transgender
healthcare for minors, and in Oklahoma the plaintiffs reached an
agreement with the attorney general to halt enforcement of the
state's law.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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