The Governors from Indiana and Idaho Sign Bans on Genderaffirming Care in the Light of Holcomb’s Proposed State Law

The legislation signed by Holcomb on Wednesday will force those currently taking medication to stop by the end of the year.

“Permanent gender- changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult,” Holcomb said in a statement about the Indiana bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit rapidly after Holcomb signed the Indiana legislation — something the group had promised to do after Republican supermajorities advanced the ban this session. The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho announced Wednesday it also planned to sue over that state’s new law.

Little explained that society plays a role in protecting Minors from surgeries and treatments that will irreversibly damage their healthy bodies. If we want to allow the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children, then we should take great caution.

Supporters of the legislation have contended the banned care is irreversible or carries side effects. They say that a minor’s parent can’t consent to the treatments.

But opponents say such care is vital and often life-saving for trans kids, and medical providers say most of the procedures are reversible and safe. Major medical associations have endorsed trans medical treatments for more than a decade.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/06/1168323019/the-governors-from-indiana-and-idaho-sign-bans-on-gender-affirming-care

Gender-affirming health care for transgender athletes: The Illinois, New Mexico, and Arkansas legislatures on Wednesday voted to protect their access to health care

At an Indiana House public health committee hearing last month, Jessica Wayner said that hormone therapy made her feel better about herself.

The GOP-led Kansas Legislature on Wednesday also overrode Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports from kindergarten through college.

The Arkansas Senate also sent a bill Wednesday to Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders that would require parental approval for Arkansas teachers to address transgender students using their preferred name and pronouns. It would prohibit schools from asking teachers to use the pronouns or name a student.

In some states where the legislature is controlled by Democrats, access to gender-affirming health care is mandated. Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill Wednesday that protects providers of gender-affirming health care against potential civil and criminal prosecution.

Dr. Molly McClain, who provides gender-affirming health care to patients of all ages, said the new legislation sends a message to people exploring their identity in ways that may not conform to gender norms.

“It says you are seen, you are safe, you are precious, and your access to health care will be protected here,” said McClain, who teaches medicine at the University of New Mexico. That sends a big message to the people who are training to become doctors.

Trans-Law: West Virginia’s Sex-Based Girls’ Sporting Law Revisited with the U.S. Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court on Thursday denied a request to intervene in a case involving West Virginia’s law banning young girls from playing sports based on their sex. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas disagreed.

Finally, her lawyers argued that the state “should not be allowed to use the [Supreme Court’s] emergency docket to force the court” to give a “preview” of its views, when no appeals court has yet addressed this issue, and on a “short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument.”

While the court’s conservative supermajority has come under considerable criticism for its aggressive use of the emergency docket to deal with controversial issues without full briefing and oral argument, this time the court stayed its hand.

Justice Alito said that federal courts should not forbid enforcement of the law at issue if the lower court injunction is not appealed.

Some 19 states have enacted laws like West Virginia’s in the last three years, according to the ACLU. The question has yet to be decided by an appeals court.

A 12-year-old middle school girl named Becky Pepper-Jackson who has lived as a girl since fourth grade challenged West Virginia’s law because it discriminated against her. She is now receiving puberty-delaying treatment and estradiol hormone therapy, so she won’t experience puberty. That means she will not experience any of the physiological characteristics of puberty experienced by typical boys, and will instead develop “physiological characteristics consistent with hormonal puberty of typical girls.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/06/1165133771/trans-law-west-virginia-supreme-court

The sexism and gender-based discrimination in athletics: The case for a transgender student in a state court of appeals

She has been on the track and field teams for four sports seasons and has beenharming no one, according to her lawyers. According to her lawyers, she has not had any issues with children on other schools’ teams.

“While some females may be able to outperform some males, it is generally accepted that, on average, males outperform females athletically because of inherent physical differences between the sexes,” he wrote. This is not an overbroad generalization but a general principle that reflects the average physical differences between men and women.

The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and private lawyers representing Becky and her mother, appealed the ruling and won a preliminary order from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that precludes the law being enforced while the appellate court considers her case.

“As long as schools offer sports teams, it has been the norm for students to play by sex,” the state said. Girls would have a harder time competing in interscholastic events if boys dominated them in sports.

The federal law, known as Title IX, is likely a trickier question for the state because the federal statute prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives funding from the federal government; the law was modeled on an earlier federal law banning discrimination in employment, and the Supreme Court ruled just three years ago that the ban on sex-based discrimination in employment applies to transgender employees.