Transgender youth treatment is banned in Arkansas vote

Opponents vow suit to block measure

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas lawmakers on Tuesday made the state the first to ban gender-confirming treatments and surgery for transgender youth, enacting the prohibition over the governor’s objections.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate voted to override GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of the measure, which prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment.

Opponents of the measure have vowed to sue to block the ban before it takes effect this summer.

Hutchinson vetoed the bill Monday after pleas from pediatricians, social workers and the parents of transgender youths, who said the measure would harm a community already at risk for depression and suicide. The ban was opposed by several medical and child welfare groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“This legislation perpetuates the very things we know are harmful to trans youth,” Dr. Robert Garofalo, division head of adolescent and young adult medicine at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, told reporters on a press conference call held by the Human Rights Campaign. “They’re not just anti-trans. They’re antiscience. They’re anti-public health.”

The bill’s sponsor dismissed opposition from medical groups and compared the restriction to other limits the state places on minors, such as prohibiting them from drinking. “They need to get to be 18 before they make those decisions,” Republican Rep. Robin Lundstrum said.

Hutchinson said the measure goes too far in interfering with parents and physicians, and noted that it will cut off care for transgender youths already receiving treatment. He said he would have signed the bill if it had focused only on gender-affirming surgery, which currently isn’t performed on minors in the state.

“I do hope my veto will cause my Republican colleagues across the country to resist the temptation to put the state in the middle of every decision made by parents and health care professionals,” Hutchinson

said in a statement after the vote.

The law will take effect in late July at the earliest. The American Civil Liberties Union said it planned to challenge the measure before then.

“This is a sad day for Arkansas, but this fight is not over — and we’re in it for the long haul,” Holly Dickson, ACLU of Arkansas’ executive director, said in a statement.

The override, which needed only a simple majority, passed easily in both chambers, with the House voting 72-25 in favor and the Senate 25-8.

The ban was enacted during a year in which bills targeting transgender people have advanced easily in Arkansas and other states. Hutchinson recently signed legislation banning transgender women and girls from competing on teams consistent with their gender identity, a prohibition also enacted in Tennessee and Mississippi this year.

Hutchinson also recently signed legislation that allows doctors to refuse to treat someone because of moral or religious objections.

Another bill advanced by a House committee Tuesday would prevent schools from requiring teachers to refer to students by their preferred pronouns or titles.