Two groups have filed a lawsuit intended to block Missouri’s restrictions on transgender health care.
Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal organization, and the ACLU of Missouri, are asking a court for a temporary restraining order to halt Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s emergency rule. The lawsuit was filed Monday in St. Louis County on behalf of Southampton Community Healthcare, the families of two transgender people, along with two others.
The state regulation is scheduled to begin Thursday and expire February 6, 2024.
In order to get such medical care, Missouri would require patients to get a full psychiatric assessment, be screened for autism, have at least 15 hourly therapy sessions over a minimum of 18 months, among other things.
In a news release, Gillian Wilcox, with the ACLU of Missouri, said the health care is not only evidence-based but is also supported by “overwhelming” scientific evidence, decades of clinical experience, and the medical consensus of major medical organizations in the United States.
“The Attorney General’s dangerous and unlawful twisting of Missouri’s consumer protection laws corrupt our health care system by inserting the government into the medical decisions of people and their doctors in order to play politics at the expense of life-saving medical care,” said Wilcox.
When announcing his original rule to restrict minors from getting transgender medical care, Bailey said he wanted to protect children. Bailey’s final rule extended to include adults as well.
Bailey’s office provided the following statement to Missourinet:
“Our regulation enacts basic safeguards for interventions that an international medical consensus has determined to be experimental. Rather than ensure that patients are protected by common sense safeguards, these organizations are racing to court in an effort to continue their ideologically-based procedures masquerading as medicine,” said Bailey.
The Republican-controlled Legislature is working to pass its own version of transgender healthcare limits this session. The topic is a GOP priority this session.
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