Kentucky Ban on Gender Care for Trans Kids Blocked by Judge

Transgender young people and their parents convinced a Kentucky federal court to preliminarily block a ban on gender-affirming care for minors that was set to take effect Thursday.

Judge David J. Hale of the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled the families showed a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their constitutional challenge to the ban, which they allege violates due process and equal protection rights. The families allege the commonwealth singled out transgender minors and prohibited them from obtaining medically necessary treatment.

• The law, enacted over Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto in March, prohibited health care providers from prescribing or administering puberty blockers or hormones to minors “to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor’s perception of, the minor’s sex,” the court said
• The commonwealth’s purported concern for “the integrity and ethics of the medical profession” was unpersuasive because it offered “no evidence that Kentucky healthcare providers prescribe puberty-blockers or hormones primarily for financial gain as opposed to patients’ well-being,” Hale said
• The court found that the “bulk of the Commonwealth’s argument is directed at a claim Plaintiffs have not made, namely that parents have ‘a fundamental right to obtain whatever drugs they want for their children, without restriction’”
• Plaintiff families submitted declarations that the treatments have significantly improved the minors’ condition and eliminating access would cause “serious consequences, including severe psychological distress and the need to move out of state”
• An Arkansas federal judge issued a permanent injunction against a similar state gender-affirming care ban earlier this month

The ACLU of Kentucky Foundation, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP represent the families.

The case is Doe v. Thornbury, W.D. Ky., No. 23-cv-230, 6/28/23.