Citing a recent ruling affecting Alabama, Georgia officials asked a federal judge Tuesday to allow the state to resume enforcement of its restriction on hormone therapy for people under the age of 18.
Judge Sarah Geraghty should vacate her order blocking Georgia's hormone therapy ban because an appeals court allowed enforcement of a similar Alabama law, attorneys for the state of Georgia said in a court filing.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Alabama can implement a ban on the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat children. It vacated a judge’s temporary injunction against that law.
The 11th Circuit includes Georgia. Its ruling came a day after Geraghty issued a preliminary injunction blocking Georgia's hormone therapy restriction.
“In its opinion, the Eleventh Circuit expressly addressed — and rejected — each of the core legal theories plaintiffs here advanced in support of their motion for preliminary injunction,” attorneys for Georgia said in their court filing.
Groups representing the plaintiffs in Georgia's case did not immediately have comment.
The Georgia law, Senate Bill 140, allows doctors to prescribe puberty-blocking medications, and it allows minors who are already receiving hormone therapy to continue.
But it bans any new patients under 18 from starting hormone therapy. It also bans most gender-affirming surgeries for people under 18. It took effect on July 1.
In her ruling, Geraghty said the children who sought the injunction faced “imminent risks” from the ban on starting hormone therapy, including depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm and suicidal ideation. She said those risks outweighed any harm to the state from an injunction.
The 11th Circuit judges who ruled on Alabama's law said states have “a compelling interest in protecting children from drugs, particularly those for which there is uncertainty regarding benefits, recent surges in use, and irreversible effects.”
Doctors typically guide children toward therapy or voice coaching long before medical intervention.
At that point, puberty blockers and other hormone treatments are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors’ organizations including the American Medical Association.
Opponents of youth transgender medical treatment say there’s no solid proof of purported benefits, cite widely discredited research and say children shouldn’t make life-altering decisions they might regret.
At least 22 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, and most of those states face lawsuits.
Bans have been temporarily blocked by federal judges in Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky. A federal appeals court has allowed Tennessee’s ban, which had been blocked by a federal judge, to take effect.
Florida has also appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn two rulings by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle.
In one case, Hinkle said a state prohibition against Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming medications is unconstitutional.
Hinkle also issued a preliminary injunction against a Florida ban on the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat three children diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
