Global Courant 2023-04-25 20:12:09
The ACLU and LGBTQ groups filed a lawsuit to stop Missouri from imposing new limits on gender reassignment services for residents of all ages on Tuesday.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey plans to enforce new rules requiring 15 separate therapy sessions over the course of 18 months before a person of any age can receive gender transition treatments, whether surgery or hormone suppression. The Missouri ACLU and Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ activist group, argue in a lawsuit that the new demand is “unprecedented and extreme.”
The groups filed the lawsuit on behalf of three transgender people and Southampton Community Healthcare, a clinic that provides gender transition services.
“(This) emergency order is an unwarranted and discriminatory attempt to limit healthcare options for transgender people, who already face several barriers to accessing necessary and life-saving medical care,” Samuel Tochtrop, a physician at Southampton Healthcare, told The Kansas City Star.
MISSOURI AG DELAYES EMERGENCY REGULATION, TIPLINE TO REPORT TRANSGENDER PROCEDURES ON MINORS: ‘CHILD ABUSE’
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey plans to impose new limits on access to gender transition services on Thursday. The ACLU and LGBT activist groups have filed a lawsuit to block the rules.
Bailey’s office dismissed the lawsuit in a statement to reporters, arguing that the incoming restrictions are “basic safeguards.” Subject to judicial intervention, the new restrictions will take effect on Thursday.
“Our regulations include basic safeguards for interventions that an international medical consensus has determined to be experimental,” Bailey’s statement said. “Instead of ensuring that patients are protected by common sense, these organizations are rushing to court in an effort to continue their ideologically based procedures masquerading as drugs.”
The ACLU and LGBT groups are suing to block new rules that prevent adults and minors from getting sex reassignment services without prior therapy sessions. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
LIMITS ON TRANSGENDER CARE FOR YOUTH IN MISSOURI TO START SOON
Bailey has cited the FDA arguing that sex reassignment surgery, puberty blockers and sex hormones can cause “long-term health consequences” such as blindness, brain swelling and loss of bone density.
“These are dangerous procedures that are not supported by science,” he said earlier this month. “They have long-term health consequences. Both the administration of puberty blockers and sex hormones can lead to blindness, brain swelling, loss of bone density, and the surgeries certainly have irreversible long-term health consequences.”
Missouri officials point to research suggesting sex reassignment services can often be dangerous. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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Bailey announced his state of emergency the same day the Missouri House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban access to sex reassignment services for minors. The Senate has yet to approve the bill.
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter at Fox News Digital covering national politics and major news events. Send tips to [email protected], or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
