Court Upholds Ban on ‘Transgender’ Interventions for Minors in Missouri

Posted by Jeff Johnston | Aug 28, 2023 | Sexuality

The Missouri law safeguarding minors from “transgender” medical interventions – puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries – takes effect August 28, 2023, after a judge refused to block the ban.

The “Missouri Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act” (SAFE Act) was signed into law on June 7, 2023. A summary of the protective measure states:

Under this act, no health care provider shall perform gender transition surgeries on any minor. Until August 28, 2027, no health care provider shall prescribe or administer cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to a minor for a gender transition, unless such minor was receiving such treatment prior to August 28, 2023.

Shortly after the SAFE Act was signed, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Missouri, and law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner filed a lawsuit in Cole County Circuit Court to block the law’s implementation. The suit was filed on behalf of three families with children with sexual identity confusion, several medical professionals, and the LGBT activist groups PFLAG and GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality.

After a hearing on August 23, in the Circuit Court of Cole County, Judge Steven Ohmer ruled against a preliminary injunction, writing that those challenging the SAFE Act had “not shown probable success on its Constitutional challenges of the law” and that “the science and medical evidence [on transgender interventions] is conflicting and unclear.”

Chloe Cole spoke in favor of the ban at the hearing. Doctors medically “transitioned” Cole when she was a young teenager, prescribing puberty blockers and testosterone when she was just 13 years old, and performing a double mastectomy when she was only 15.

Just one year later, she regretted her decision to undergo these procedures that irreversibly changed and damaged her body. She applauded the decision in a tweet, saying:

Cole knows that adolescents are not emotionally or mentally equipped to decide to undergo experimental, harmful, life-altering transgender medical interventions.

Earlier this year, she filed suit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, The Permanente Medical Group and four doctors and counselors, alleging they had improperly treated her with chemical and surgical interventions, leaving her with “deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system.”

Cole’s lawsuit claims:

Chloe has suffered physically, socially, neurologically, and psychologically. Among other harms, she has suffered mutilation to her body and lost social development with her peers at milestones that can never be reversed or regained.

She also states that doctors did not adequately inform her of the serious risks from puberty blockers, testosterone treatment and surgeries. The suit alleges:

Defendants obscured and concealed important information such as the following: the conflicting studies in this area; the high quality evidence demonstrating poor mental health outcomes; the existence of only low to very low-quality studies purportedly supporting this treatment; the significant likelihood that desired outcomes would not be attained; the significant possibility of desistence, detransition and regret; and the lack of accurate models for predicting desistence and detransition.

They also did not disclose the significant health risks associated with a biological female taking high doses of harmful male hormone drugs and off-label puberty blockers.

Twenty states have passed SAFE Acts, also known as “Help Not Harm” legislation, guarding vulnerable adolescent and teen girls like Chloe Cole from damaging, experimental procedures which stop normal development and cause physical and emotional injuries.

Many of these laws have been challenged in court by LGBT activist organizations. In Alabama, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit lifted a lower court injunction, allowing the protective law to go into effect.

In a contrary ruling issued in Georgia the same day, U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty blocked the state from enforcing its law prohibiting physicians from prescribing puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones to children.

Texas also has a “Help Not Harm” Act that goes into effect August 28, 2023, despite similar legal challenges.

The Missouri case will move forward, with the protections for children and teens still in place.

With conflicting decisions in different courts, it is likely the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually be asked to decide the constitutionality of state laws protecting minors from transgender medical interventions.

Related articles and resources:

For families and individuals struggling with transgender issues, Focus on the Family offers a free, one-time counseling consultation with a licensed or pastoral counselor. To request a counseling consultation, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) or fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

Family Policy Alliance Launches ‘Help Not Harm’ Campaign to ‘Stop Transgender Experiments on Our Children!’

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

Important New Journal Article Calls Out Doctors for Harming Youth with Medicalized Gender Ideology

Questioning Drugs, Hormones and Surgery for Youth Confused about Their Sexual Identity

Three More States Protect Children From Damaging ‘Transgender’ Medical Procedures!

Photo from Twitter

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