The GOP’s Anti-trans Crusade Has Come Up Against a Legal Wall—For Now

The scourge of new laws banning medical treatment for young transgender people is seemingly hitting a legal wall, as federal judges in several predominately red states have temporarily—and, in one case, permanently—blocked them from taking effect. Federal judges in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida have found that the laws infringe on the Equal Protection Clause found in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, as Reuters pointed out. While 20 states have passed laws barring minors from obtaining gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy treatment, these decisions are an early sign that the courts could be a check on conservatives’ anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.

“The courts are starting to find very consistently that these laws are ridiculous,” Kevin Jennings, the chief executive of Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights group, told Reuters. “They violate the equal protection clause, they’re motivated by animus, not science and they serve no state interest.”

In Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida, the laws have been blocked temporarily as the challenges unfold in court. However, district judge James Moody Jr., a Barack Obama appointee, made a permanent injunction last month striking down an Arkansas law that had been the first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for young people. Per Reuters, challenges to anti-trans laws in Montana and Georgia have yet to be ruled on as well. The US district judges involved in the cases found the clause to be applicable because gender-affirming care is medically essential for young people experiencing gender dysphoria. They have also said the laws impede the right of parents to make healthcare choices for their own children. (Interestingly, three of the judges blocking red state anti-trans laws were appointed by Donald Trump.)

These legal fights play out as Republican presidential candidates continue to take hard-line anti-LGBTQ+ positions in their national campaigns. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whose administration has made anti-LGBTQ+ legislation a central part of his agenda in Florida, even attacked Trump in an ad shared last week by his campaign for making sympathetic comments toward these communities in the past, including one made after the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub. Trump, meanwhile, in a speech Friday, vowed to cut federal spending on schools pushing “transgender insanity” and “to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age” through federal agencies, if elected president again.

Since the passage of that Arkansas law in 2021, Republican state lawmakers and conservative activists have worked to pass similar laws across the country, with dozens still under consideration. The Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-trans group that recently had a major victory in the Supreme Court with a ruling that effectively allows some businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ+ customers, seems hopeful that the challenges in other states will dissipate: “Courts get it wrong sometimes,” Matt Sharp, ADF’s senior counsel, told Reuters. “This is still early in the process.”

The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have both expressed support for “age-appropriate, gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.” The Equal Protection Clause rules that states cannot deny “any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”