An Arkansas law banning transgender care has been struck down because it discriminates against transgender people, violates the free speech rights of doctors and would harm the very young people it seeks to protect.
As BNG reported last month, Arkansas was the first state to enact “Help Not Harm” legislation crafted by the Family Policy Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy organization with a network of 40 state chapters that serves as the “public policy partner” of Focus on the Family.
Judge James M. Moody
This month, Texas and Louisiana became the 17th and 18th states to enact the Alliance’s bills, which aim to “end transgender experiments on kids” and claim that trans care has only harmed those who seek help.
But the decision from U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr., citing state medical organizations, said the Arkansas law would “cause immediate and irreversible harm to adolescents” and that experts on both sides said “the harms are severe.”
“Not all adolescents with gender dysphoria will live to age 18 if they are unable to get gender-affirming medical treatment.”
“Not all adolescents with gender dysphoria will live to age 18 if they are unable to get gender-affirming medical treatment,” wrote Judge Moody, who said defenders of the law failed to prove their interests are “compelling, genuine or even rational.”
Moody’s decision is just the beginning of a legal battle over these bills. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she would appeal the ruling, and some expect the case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Moody had blocked the law from taking effect in 2021. “Help Not Harm” bills also hve been blocked in Florida and Alabama.
The Family Policy Alliance issued a statement that called trans care “a medical scandal” and said: “Today, a federal judge has determined that it is better for children to face sterilization and even mutilation than to allow them the basic protections of Arkansas law. … Americans are more interested in protecting children than political ideology. They see this tragedy for what it is, and they know that it’s time to act.”
The Alliance’s model legislation bans gender transition procedures for minors and claims such care constitutes “unprofessional and reckless conduct.” Alliance executive Autumn Leva said while the “woke left” and their collaborators in the medical establishment have “weaponized” transgender identity, the Alliance has set up a “shield of defense” protecting children from treatments that do no good and cause great harm.
Her group has claimed: “There is no such thing as a ‘trans kid.’”
But during an eight-day trial, young people, parents and medical experts demolished the Alliance’s claims.
The Alliance claims parents of trans kids are victims of a politicized agenda, but the four families who testified against the law demonstrated they had done extensive research to provide the best care for their kids. For example the Jennen family “took a lot of time, thought and prayer” before choosing trans care for their daughter Sabrina.
Donnie Ray Saxton testified that after the “Help Not Harm” bill passed, his son Parker went to such a “dark place” that Donnie Ray slept near him at night due to concerns he would hurt himself.
“The state offered no evidence to refute the decades of clinical experience demonstrating the efficacy of gender-affirming medical care.”
The Alliance’s claim that trans care harms young people was disputed by medical experts. “The state offered no evidence to refute the decades of clinical experience demonstrating the efficacy of gender-affirming medical care,” Judge Moody 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.”
In many states, the Alliance has used testimony from people who underwent gender transition only to change their minds, regret their choice and go through de-transitioning. But these claims were disputed by a doctor who testified that in treating thousands of patients with gender dysphoria over 30 years, none reversed their decision.
The Alliance’s claims that trans care is risky and experimental were dismissed, too.
“The state has failed to prove that gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria is ineffective or riskier than other medical care provided to minors,” Moody wrote.
The judge said the law also would harm medical providers by penalizing them for “simply following best medical practices to provide or even refer for appropriate effective care that is based in science and evidence.” He said the law’s “content and viewpoint-based regulation” violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which “forbids the government to infringe” on fundamental liberties without a compelling state interest.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, an evangelical Christian who is running for president, vetoed the Arkansas law, calling it a “vast government overreach” that created “new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents.” Republican legislators overrode his veto.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a powerful Christian legal organization founded by James Dobson, provided three experts to testify in favor of the “Help Not Harm” law, but none had any experience in trans care, and none impressed Judge Moody.
Moody dismissed claims by sociologist Mark Regnerus that trans care harms kids, citing lack of evidence and pointing out that his expert testimony has been questioned by other courts for offering “ideology rather than science.”
Moody also said the Alliance’s trans legislation “discriminates against transgender people,” writing: “only gender-affirming medical care — and all gender-affirming medical care — is singled out for prohibition.”
Three decades ago, Focus on the Family backed Colorado’s Amendment 2, which won 53% of the vote but was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, with the majority writing that the measure “classified homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else.”
Judge Moody’s ruling said the Alliance’s Arkansas law similarly discriminated against transgender people: “The fact that transgender adults face elevated rates of physical and mental health issues due to stigma, discrimination and having lived with gender dysphoria is not a reason to deny treatment to adolescents with gender dysphoria; if anything, it supports the need for access to treatment.”
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