A federal judge in Arkansas on Tuesday struck down the state’s law forbidding medical treatments for children and teenagers seeking gender transitions, blocking what had been the first in a wave of such measures championed by conservative lawmakers across the country.
The case had been closely watched as an important test of whether bans on transition care for minors, which have since been enacted by 19 other states, could withstand legal challenges being brought by activists and civil liberties groups.
It is the first ruling to broadly block such a ban for an entire state, though judges have intervened to temporarily delay similar laws from going into effect.
In his 80-page ruling, Judge James M. Moody Jr. of Federal District Court in Little Rock said the law both discriminated against transgender people and violated the constitutional rights of doctors.
He also said that the state of Arkansas had failed to substantially prove a number of its claims, including that the care was experimental or carelessly prescribed to teenagers.
Persons:
Judge James M, Moody Jr, “, ”, Moody, Barack Obama
Organizations:
Court
Locations:
Arkansas, Little Rock