Judge Blocks Georgia from Enforcing Ban on Hormone Treatments

metroweekly.com:

order issued Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, of the Northern District of Georgia, said the law’s provision prohibiting medical professionals from prescribing hormone therapy for such patients was “substantially likely to violate the Equal Protection Clause,” reports CNN.Under the law, which went into effect on July 1, medical providers are prohibited from recommending gender-affirming care to any minor, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender confirmation surgery — the latter of which is rarely performed on minors.

A group of four transgender youth — including two who are currently on puberty blockers — and their parents, and an advocacy group that works to connect families of transgender children to local doctors who provide gender-affirming treatments, sued just before the law took effect, claiming that the ban effectively denies transgender minors essential medical care.While the prohibition on surgery was not challenged, thereby remaining in effect, the prohibition on hormone-related treatments was, with opponents of the law, including the main plaintiffs in the case, arguing that the law infringes on parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children’s health and blocks them from what most experts consider the appropriate medical treatment for youth suffering from gender dysphoria.Geraghty sided with the plaintiffs, finding that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in challenging the law’s constitutionality.

In issuing her injunction, she blocked state officials from barring any minors from accessing hormone-related treatments — as compared to the state, which argued that any injunction, if granted, should only apply to the four plaintiffs and their families.