IDAHO, USA — Idaho's attorney general is asking the highest court in the United States to allow the state to ban gender affirming care for minors.
In an emergency motion filed Friday, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador asked the Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) to implement the statewide ban on gender affirming care for minors; however, the AG said the ban won't apply to two transgender teenagers challenging the law.
In the motion, Labrador said he has witnessed what gender-affirming drugs and procedures have done to children and teenagers with gender dysphoria and called the impact a "preventable tragedy."
“The state has a duty to protect and support all children and that’s why I’m proud to defend Idaho’s law that ensures children are not subjected to these life-altering drugs and procedures," Labrador said in a statement. "Those suffering gender dysphoria deserve love, support, and medical care rooted in biological reality. Denying the basic truth that boys and girls are biologically different hurts our kids. No one has the right to harm children, and, thankfully, we as the state have the power—and duty—to protect them.”
Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the controversial bill into law last April. The law makes it a felony to provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18, criminalizing doctors who prescribe such treatments.
Last June, two transgender teenagers and their families filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of the law. In December, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on the lawsuit against the ban, putting the law on hold.
As of Jan. 30, the law is still blocked from going into effect.
“Every day Idaho’s law remains enjoined exposes vulnerable children to risky and dangerous medical procedures and infringes Idaho’s sovereign power to enforce its democratically enacted law," the motion states. "These procedures have lifelong, irreversible consequences, with more and more minors voicing their regret for taking this path."
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Many prominent medical organizations, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Medical Association (AMA), have published studies regarding the positive health impacts of gender-affirming care for minors.
In a 2022 study published by the AMA, researchers with JAMA Network Open followed more than 100 transgender and non-binary teenagers and young adults aged 13-20. All participants completed surveys three, six and 12 months after puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones were initiated.
The results showed the teens and young adults who received gender-affirming care had a 60% lower chance of moderate or severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality over the first year compared to those who did not get such medications.
"Among the youths who didn’t start puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones, 'depressive symptoms and suicidality were two-fold to three-fold higher than baseline levels at three and six months of follow-up, respectively,' wrote the authors, led by Diana M. Tordoff, MPH, a pre-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at University of Washington in Seattle."
According to the NIH, the legislative interest in banning gender-affirming care is due in part to concerns about the child or teen regretting their decision later on. NIH said previous studies have shown the regret rate following gender-affirming procedures is thought to be approximately 1%.
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