Arkansas Trans-Care Ban for Minors Reaches Full Eighth Circuit

Arkansas’ defense of its first-in-the-nation ban on minors’ treatments for gender dysphoria met a mostly quiet Eighth Circuit on Thursday, with questions about the constitutional scrutiny that applies to the law.

The state’s Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act is a proper exercise of the state’s regulatory authority to protect minors from the risks of gender-transition treatment, and it doesn’t violate the equal-protection rights of minors or the due-process rights of their parents, Dylan Jacobs, Arkansas’ deputy solicitor general, told the full US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The state’s ban applies to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries ...