Judge Declines to Pause Alabama Trans Health Care Ban Lawsuit
A federal judge has refused to pause a lawsuit challenging Alabama's ban on gender-affirming care for trans-identifying minors.
A federal judge declined to pause a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors even as additional challenges in similar cases are making their way through the courts.
U.S. District Judge Liles Burke, of the Northern District of Alabama, rejected a request from the U.S. Department of Justice asking for a hold on the Alabama case until appellate courts decide if they’ll hear petitions on whether states can enact bans on gender-affirming care.
In its request, the DOJ argued that “this exceptional legal landscape is quickly evolving.”
In denying that request, Burke wrote that the Alabama case will move forward for now. However, according to the Associated Press, he did leave open the option of issuing a stay if petitions to appellate courts are granted.
Groups of transgender youth and their parents have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed bans on gender-affirming care in Kentucky and Tennessee to remain in effect.
In the Alabama case, the plaintiffs — which include families with transgender children and two doctors who have treated transgender patients — have asked the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a previous decision allowing the law to take effect.
In August, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit found that states have “a compelling interest in protecting children from drugs, particularly those for which there is uncertainty regarding benefits, recent surges in use, and irreversible effects.”
The panel also argued that Burke, who had issued an injunction blocking the law, had applied the wrong legal standard to the case.
Writing on behalf of the court, Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, wrote that “[t]he plaintiffs have not presented any authority that supports the existence of a constitutional right to ‘treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.'”
Lagoa also maintained that the plaintiffs had not proven the law discriminates against them on the basis of sex or other protected characteristics, as the law prevents all minors from accessing gender-affirming treatments to assist in a gender transition.
Burke previously set a trial date of April 2, 2024, during which he will hear oral arguments for why Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care should be overturned or kept in place.
Under the law, doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors can be punished with up to 10 years in prison and risk the loss of their medical license.
In all, 22 states have enacted laws imposing some form of restrictions on gender-affirming care — most taking the form of bans on all hormonal and surgical interventions.
Several of those have been challenged in court and blocked at the district level, but those injunctions were later overturned by conservative-leaning circuit courts. Thus far, only one ban — in Arkansas — has been overturned by a federal judge as unconstitutional.
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