Hold on Idaho’s gender-affirming care ban remains in place for transgender kids

A federal appeals court has allowed gender-affirming health care for transgender children to continue while a lawsuit against Idaho’s ban on hormone treatments makes its way through court.

Two transgender minors and their parents sued the state less than two months after Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 71 into law, making it a felony for medical providers to prescribe treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children. The parents argued that the law was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued a preliminary injunction against the law in December, days before the state’s ban was scheduled to go into effect.

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador appealed the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this month and asked the appeals court to stop Winmill’s preliminary injunction. Three appeals court judges denied that request Tuesday.

“This ruling should be celebrated by everyone who decries discrimination,” Paul Carlos Southwick, the ACLU of Idaho’s legal director, said in an emailed statement. The organization represents the transgender minors, along with other attorneys. “We celebrate alongside transgender youth and their families throughout Idaho who will continue to have access to the health care they need and deserve.”

A spokesperson for Labrador did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The state is represented by a number of attorneys, including lawyers with Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group. One of the attorneys for the organization on the case, Lincoln Davis Wilson, used to work for the attorney general.

Labrador previously compared Winmill’s ruling to the American eugenics movement, when laws allowed the forced sterilization of people with mental or physical disabilities.

“Similarly, Judge Winmill’s ruling places children at risk of irreversible harm,” he said in a statement. “History will not look kindly at this decision.”

Winmill wrote in December that the purpose of the 14th Amendment is to “protect disfavored minorities and preserve our fundamental rights from legislative overreach.”

“That was true for newly freed slaves following the Civil War. It was true in the 20th century for women, people of color, interracial couples and individuals seeking access to contraception,” he said. “And it is no less true for transgender children and their parents in the 21st century.”

Legal briefs from the state are due to the 9th Circuit in February, and responses from attorneys for the transgender minors are due in March, according to the court docket.