Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed three bills into law with implications for the trans-identified. HB 5495 would require insurers to cover cross sex hormones for up to six months, HB 5905 would allow trans-identified citizens to self-select their “gender” on state documents, and HB 4834 would remove testosterone from the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program, prohibiting data collection related to prescriptions. “I am proud to sign three bills that will expand on my administration’s work to make Illinois a safe, empowering, and inclusive place for the LGBTQ+ community,” Governor Pritzker said in a press release.
In a unanimous ruling, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of detransitioner Soren Aldaco, allowing her malpractice claims against her former therapist to proceed. “[The ruling] establishes a renewed lens for determining when the statute of limitations begins in cases involving minors who later allege harm from medical providers who facilitated irreversible ‘gender-transition’ interventions,” Independent Women explains. Malpractice cases often have narrow statutes of limitations, which poses a problem in detransitioner cases, because patient regret often takes years to manifest. The ruling allows Aldaco to have her case decided on its merits rather than dismissed on procedural grounds. “Aldaco’s case builds on growing legal and cultural momentum on addressing the largest scandal in U.S. medical history—pediatric ‘gender-affirming care.’ Earlier this year, detransitioner Fox Varian won a first-of-its-kind $2 million settlement in New York. Together, these cases signal the beginning of a broader reckoning in medicine and law” Independent Women asserts.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for Florida to pursue claims against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for allegedly misleading the public about the safety and effectiveness of “affirming care” interventions. The AAP has denied the claims, arguing that Florida’s actions amount to cynical retaliation and an illegal attempt to silence groups that support youth medical transition. A U.S. District Judge sided with the AAP and blocked Florida from proceeding with the lawsuit. Subsequently, a 7th Circuit panel denied Floria’s bid to stay the ruling. In the latest ruling, the Court of Appeals overruled the earlier panel ruling, and voted to block enforcement of the federal judge’s June ruling. The Court of Appeals also agreed to hear the case en banc instead of first having it reviewed by a three-judge panel.
An Oklahoma law prohibiting Medicaid from covering cross-sex hormones for the purpose of transitioning to match a cross-sex identity is already having an impact, despite not formally going into effect until November. In addition to prohibiting Medicaid from covering medical transition for children and adults, another provision also bans the use of public property for the purpose of facilitating medical transition. The law also contains an emergency clause that allowed some aspects of the bill to go into effect immediately after being signed into law. In response, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority announced in early June that it will deny insurance claims for procedures used to treat gender dysphoria.
New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte has signed a law requiring teachers to disclose any information requested by parents about their children, including questions about their child’s “gender identity.” “In the end, this is a straight process bill,” said Senator Tim Lang, the Republican who sponsored SB 430. “When a parent asks a question of the school, they should get an answer in a reasonable amount of time, and the answer should be honest and truthful.” If teachers don’t respond to requests within ten days, they risk professional penalties. The law does contain exceptions involving disclosing information prohibited by state or federal law, and in situations where disclosing information could credibly result in abuse or neglect.
At a recent conference on Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine, former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), Dr. Scot Glasberg, made a case for limiting gender transition surgeries to age 26, and explained how ASPS came to break with the consensus on “affirming care.” Glasberg believes that because cognitive maturity isn’t fully developed until age 25; the typical legal age of maturity, 18, fails to account for this reality. Glasberg also explained that ASPS’ position statement opposing surgeries for patients under 19 was based on the highest quality evidence available, and not deference to the consensus of U.S. medical societies. Glasberg maintains that ASPS sought collaboration with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, but the organization refused to share its methodology tables, which is not surprising considering the organization’s suppression of evidence reviews.
The Hill chronicles how in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, trans rights activists are losing faith in Justice Gorsuch functioning as a counterbalance to what they perceive to be the court’s conservative majority. Gorsuch’s 2020 opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, a Title VII case, established that employers can’t fire people because of their sexual orientation or “gender identity.” “In Bostock, he seemed to agree that discrimination on the basis of transgender status was a violation of the law, and in these most recent cases, he seems to have discarded that under the guise of there’s a different legal rubric at play here,” said Anthony Sbardellati, a partner at Grove Law who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Transgender Law Center. In the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling, Gorsuch’s opinion clarified how his ruling in Bostock was limited to Title VII, not Title IX, and is consistent with the court’s most recent ruling.
National Review’s Abigail Anthony explains the problems with a vague “conversion practices” bill introduced in the UK, which would make it a criminal offense to attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or “gender identity” in Britain and Wales. Though the law has an exemption for “healthcare,” specific therapies are not exempt. As Anthony points out, the bill implicitly adopts several ideological assumptions about the immutability of trans identities which clashes with the broader research literature. If implemented, the law would have a chilling effect on therapists who don’t follow “affirming care” orthodoxy. “What would this law look like in practice? A mother who tells her son suffering from gender dysphoria to just ‘wait a few years’ before pursuing ‘gender transition’ could be imprisoned for years, whereas the activist therapist who tells that same boy that ‘you’re a girl because you say so and you should get estrogen injections’ would likely be protected,” Anthony surmises.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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