BIGOTRY
Missouri Court Upholds Trans Care Ban, Citing Duty to ‘Protect Integrity of Medical Profession’
A Missouri court upheld a ban on gender affirming care for minors, citing ethical concerns.
Judge R. Craig Carter filed his ruling Monday in the case Noe v. Parson, deciding that the state’s ban on providing gender affirming care for minors did not run afoul of the constitution. The case was brought by several trans teens and their families, and filed by Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Missouri and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP.
The law bans all care, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for people under 18. Minors who obtained this sort of care prior to August 28, 2023 are protected, and the law is set to expire on the same day in 2027.
The Missouri court ruled that it was “required to deny the plaintiff’s prayers for relief.”
READ MORE: Lone Dissenter Calls Texas Supreme Court Transgender Ruling ‘Cruel, Unconstitutional’
“This Court finds an almost total lack of consensus as to the medical ethics of adolescent gender dysphoria treatment. The evidence at trial showed severe disagreement as to whether adolescent gender dysphoria drug and surgical treatment was ethical at all, and if so, what amount of treatment was ethically allowable. States do have an abiding interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession,” Carter wrote.
Carter ruled that since gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, and mental disorders are generally treated “by actually treating the mental aspect, like prescribing Zoloft to treat depression,” care that affects the body is not in line with “western medicine.”
“However, the gender dysphoria treatment prohibited by Missouri uses drugs and surgeries to either inhibit normal healthy human growth or surgically remove and replace healthy human organs. Such an approach to treatment is well outside normal medicine, and medical ethicists are unable to agree on the propriety thereof,” he wrote.
Carter also questioned “why the number of individuals with gender dysphoria has skyrocketed over the last decade,” parroting claims from anti-transgender advocates that it’s a “fad.” However, a 2022 study published by the medical journal Pediatrics debunked the claims of “social contagion” increasing the number of trans youth. The theory was initially posed by Dr. Lisa Littman in 2018, who wrote a paper describing “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Littman’s paper was published by the journal PLOS One, who later issued a correction, pointing out that she did not actually speak to trans teens, but their parents.
Gender affirming care for minors typically involves prescribing puberty blockers, which delay the onset of puberty. Prior to puberty, care is generally limited to social changes—like wearing clothes or pronouns that align with the gender the child identifies as, according to Advocates for Trans Equality. Hormone replacement therapy in minors is exceedingly rare, and surgery is even more so.
Though Carter wrote in his ruling that “the potential harms from these interventions are serious,” puberty blockers are fully reversible. Not only that, but a study published in The Lancet found that 98% of those on puberty blockers went on hormone replacement therapy upon turning 18. But should a teen realize they aren’t trans, all they need to do is stop taking the blockers, and their body will go through puberty as normal. Puberty blockers have been used for years and are safe, according to Cedars-Sinai, and are most commonly used to stop precocious puberty, a condition affecting 1 in 5,000 children—including some as young as 6.
Lambda Legal has vowed to appeal the Missouri court’s ruling.
“We are extremely disappointed in this decision, but this is not the end of the fight and we will appeal. However, the court’s findings signal a troubling acceptance of discrimination, ignore an extensive trial record and the voices of transgender Missourians and those who care for them, and deny transgender adolescents and Medicaid beneficiaries from their right to access to evidence-based, effective, and often life-saving medical care,” Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Missouri said in a joint statement.
Image by Ted Eytan via Wikimedia Commons
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