In the first of a series of lawsuits challenging anti-LGBTQ measures passed by Republican-led states in their ongoing culture war, a federal judge struck down Arkansas ban on medical care for transgender children saying it violates the Constitutional rights of both the patients and the doctor, the New York Times reports.
James M. Moody, an Obama appointee, also ruled that Arkansas failed to prove a number of the claims it asserted regarding the law’s stated purpose of protecting children from harmful medical care, stating that Arkansas’s attorneys didn’t prove the care was experimental or was recklessly prescribed. At least twelve states have similar laws, which are all facing similar legal challenges.
“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,” Moody wrote, adding, “Further, the various claims underlying the state’s arguments that the act protects children and safeguards medical ethics do not explain why only gender-affirming medical care — and all gender-affirming medical care — is singled out for prohibition.”