(Washington) A US federal judge on Tuesday invalidated a law prohibiting minors from gender transition treatment in Arkansas, which is a first at a time when similar texts are multiplying in Republican states.
Judge Jay Moody found that this text was unconstitutional because it violates the rights of doctors and discriminates against transgender people.
“Evidence shows that these banned treatments improve the mental health and well-being of patients and that by banning them, the state undermines the interests of those it claims to defend,” he wrote in his decision. .
Arkansas, a conservative and religious southern state, in 2021 became the first to ban minors from accessing hormonal or surgical gender transition treatments.
Since then, around twenty other states have followed suit, including Florida and Texas. More broadly, Republicans are leading an offensive on LGBTQ+ issues, attacking gender discussion at school or even drag queen shows, deemed too sexualized.
Gender transition treatment laws have already been temporarily suspended while lawsuits continue, but this is the first such decision by a federal judge to rule on the merits.
Arkansas District Attorney Tim Griffin announced the state would appeal. “There is no scientific evidence showing that a child can benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent,” he said in a statement.
Complainant Dylan Brandt, a 17-year-old transgender teenager, said he was “grateful” to the judge, who understood that this treatment had “changed (his) life for the better” and perceived “the dangerous consequences of this law” .
The teenager claimed he filed the lawsuits to help all young transgender people “who see their future threatened by laws like these”.
The decision affects only Arkansas, but activists who defend the rights of transgender people hope it will have symbolic significance outside the state’s borders.
“This decision sends a clear message,” said Holly Dickson, local leader of the powerful ACLU civil rights association. “The alarmism and misinformation about this health care is based on nothing. This harms transgender youth and must stop. »