After a temporary restraining order was issued against Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s emergency rule restricting gender-affirming care, the Secretary of State announced this week that the statewide policy was withdrawn.
The May 16 termination of Experimental Interventions to Treat Gender Dysphoria was announced on the Secretary of State website after 21st Judicial Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo granted Lambda Legal’s motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, delaying the effective date of Bailey’s rule.
Lambda Legal is a national legal group that represents LGBTQ persons.
“Today’s actions are a victory for Missourians’ right to bodily autonomy, but the fight is not over,” ACLU of Missouri spokesperson Tom Bastian said in a May 16 email. “While recently passed legislation is not as extreme as the Attorney General’s unlawful rule, it still rejects the recommendations of every major medical association based on decades of peer-reviewed studies supporting the necessity of life-saving gender-affirming care.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Lambda Legal, along with Southampton Community Healthcare, and the American Civil Liberties Union sued AG Bailey on April 24 in response to Bailey’s April 13 directive.
Since then, the Missouri General Assembly approved two bills, Senate Bills (SB) 39 and 49, which LGBTQ advocates consider to be anti-trans.
“The legislative bill is very confusingly worded and it seems like what they're attempting to do is allow people under 18 who are already receiving care to continue receiving care as of the effective date, which is late August but it remains to be seen how that will work in practice," said Nora Huppert, Lambda Legal staff attorney.
SB 49 prohibits prescribing hormone or puberty-blocking pharmaceuticals to those under 18 years of age while SB 39 penalizes schools if they allow athletes to compete on sports teams that are not their biological sex.
“If it is allowed to become law, the legislation would substitute the uninformed opinions of politicians for patient and parental consent informed by knowledgeable medical professionals," Bastian said.
Among adults 54.7% of whites identify as transgender, 13% are black, 5.8% are Asian, 1.1% are American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN), 21.7% are Latinx and 3.8% are mixed race, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
"There are certain populations that are disproportionately impacted by restrictions on gender-affirming care," Huppert told the St. Louis Record. "We're concerned about the disproportionate impact that policies like these have on people who aren't able to seek care out of state or aren't able to relocate."
Gov. Mike Parson has yet to sign SB 49 and SB 39 into law.
“The Governor should veto Senate Bills 39 and 49 and afford trans youth and their families the dignity of continuing to make important medical decisions without interference from the political branches of government,” Bastian added.