Minor Victories.

It was just a temporary injunction blocking a law for minors but…

Federal court temporarily halts Tennessee ban on transgender care for minors

A preliminary injunction grants a partial victory to plaintiffs, maintaining a ban on surgical care but acknowledging the new law likely violates provisions of the US Constitution

Tennessee Lockout

By: Holly McCall

June 28, 2023

In a partial victory for transgender Tennesseans, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday on portions of new law prohibiting trans minors from obtaining gender affirming care, ruling the law likely violates the First and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution.

Judge Eli Richardson granted the injunction to the plaintiffs — parents of two transgender youth — agreeing with arguments that Senate Bill 1 may interfere with the right of a minor’s parents to direct the medical care of their children as protected by the 14th Amendment.

But Richardson also ruled the portion of the new law banning surgical treatment stands for the time being on the grounds that neither of the minor plaintiffs argued a prohibition on surgical treatment would affect their treatment for gender dysphoria.

The new law, which is set to take effect on July 1, prohibits any minor in Tennessee from receiving certain medical procedures if the purpose of receiving those procedures is to enable that minor to live with a gender identity that is inconsistent with that minor’s sex at birth, defining  “medical procedure” as including “surgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs of a human being.”

But still it is a victory and since surgery on minors are not done anyway it is a full victory and it follows on the heels of another ruling.

Federal judge strikes down Arkansas ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth

The 2021 law discriminated against transgender people and violated the 1st and 14th amendments, federal judge rules

By: Tess Vrbin

June 20, 2023

A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth Tuesday, nearly two years after blocking it from going into effect.

Act 626 of 2021, known as the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act, prohibited physicians from providing “gender transition” treatments like hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries to those under age 18.

The SAFE Act became law in May 2021 when the Arkansas Legislature overrode then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto.

[…]

U.S. District Judge James Moody temporarily enjoined enforcement of the law in July 2021 and oversaw the lawsuit’s eight-day trial last year. The trial was the first in the U.S. over a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. There was no jury, and Moody was solely responsible for deciding whether the SAFE Act would go into effect.

Moody issued the permanent injunction that the plaintiffs requested. His 80-page ruling stated repeatedly that the Arkansas attorney general’s office, which defended the law, “failed to provide sufficient evidence that the banned treatments are ineffective or experimental.”

“The State offered no evidence to refute the decades of clinical experience demonstrating the efficacy of gender-affirming medical care,” Moody wrote. “Additionally, the State’s experts offered no evidence-based treatment alternatives.”

We are winning in the courts but not in the legislatures and you know that the Republicans are going to be claiming “liberal courts” and “activist judges” even though some of the judges were appointed by Republicans.

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Since I wrote this last week we had a very big set back! See "Bad News – We Lost A Biggie!"