Arkansas Ban On Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Youth Awaits Court Ruling

By Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate

December 1, 2022

Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors awaits a decision from a federal judge after the defense rested its case Thursday.

The proceedings lasted eight days, four in October and four in November, as the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office defended Act 626 of 2021, known as the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act. It prohibits physicians from providing “gender transition” treatments like hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries to those under age 18.

Act 626 became law in May 2021 when the Arkansas Legislature overrode Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto. Four transgender Arkansas minors, their parents and two physicians who have treated those minors filed suit just days later, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S. District Judge James Moody enjoined enforcement of the law in July 2021. A panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction, and the full court later refused to rehear the ruling.

Moody presided over the trial, which was the first in the U.S. over such a ban. In October, Moody denied a motion from the defense to dismiss the case.

There is no jury in the case, and Moody is solely responsible for the decision about whether Act 626 will go into effect.

The parents of all four transgender minor plaintiffs testified in October that their children’s mental health and self-image have improved significantly since socially and medically transitioning. Dylan Brandt, the primary named plaintiff and a transgender 17-year-old from Greenwood, testified in October that receiving testosterone has “changed [his] life for the better” and that he is finally comfortable looking in a mirror.

If Act 626 goes into effect, the only ways for transgender minors to continue receiving gender-affirming care would be to travel or move, creating major financial and emotional burdens for the four families, the parents said.

The defense and its witnesses have claimed that minors cannot know for certain that they will still consider themselves transgender as adults and that there is not enough evidence that gender-affirming hormone treatments improve transgender people’s quality of life.

Two adults who “detransitioned,” or lived as transgender but now live as their original gender identities, testified for the defense Wednesday. Neither has ever lived or sought medical care in Arkansas, and both transitioned as adults. They both said their Christian spiritual awakenings led them to denounce and regret their gender transitions.

Two doctors who testified for the plaintiffs last month, Dr. Michele Hutchison and Dr. Kathryn Stambough, said their young patients have not regretted transitioning. Hutchison started the Gender Spectrum Clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, and Stambough took over as the clinic’s director this year after Hutchison took a new job in another state.

They also said they fully inform transgender minors and their parents about gender-affirming medical treatments before gaining their consent and administering the treatments.

Adolescents have the “cognitive maturity” to make informed medical decisions alongside their parents, Hutchison and Stambough said.

The parents of the minor plaintiffs confirmed that medical professionals have been thorough in their explanations of how gender-affirming treatments affect young people.

Attorneys for both sides will submit post-trial briefs at a date they will set together, they agreed at the end of the trial Thursday. Moody will then make his decision, which can be appealed.

The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy. This service is free to readers and other news outlets.