Missouri’s limits on gender transition health care won’t begin Thursday. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo has put Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s restrictions on hold until at least Monday.
Bailey, a Republican running for attorney general in 2024, submitted the rule limiting hormone therapy and gender transitions for children and adults, unless certain conditions are met.
The ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ legal organization, filed a lawsuit in response to the rule.
The state regulation was scheduled to begin Thursday and expire February 6, 2024.
Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, is pleased with the judge’s decision.
“Our patients can breathe a bit easier today now that the court sided with science and medicine over the Attorney General’s ideological transphobia. We will continue to provide the gender-affirming care that more than a thousand patients are relying on. This is a temporary win — not only for our patients but for everyone across Missouri because politicians have no business blocking anyone from the care they want and need. We are optimistic the court will permanently strike down these harmful restrictions and send a message to the attorney general that he has no business regulating people’s health care,” she said. “Today’s order is encouraging, but we know these attacks will keep coming. The Attorney General and his league of ideological fanatics are hell-bent on denying science and evidence to attack the trans community in the same way they’ve attacked people seeking an abortion.”
Bailey has said his emergency rule clarifies that gender transition interventions are experimental and he said state law already bans performing experimental procedures.
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