Alabama can enforce ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth

https://thehill.com/homenews/lgbtq/-alabama-ban-gender-affirming…

Alabama may enforce its felony ban on gender-affirming health care for minors, a federal court ruled Thursday, granting the state’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that had blocked state officials from enforcing the ban for more than a year.

In a two-page order on Thursday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court’s injunction against the 2022 law, which makes it a felony for physicians to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to transgender individuals under 19. Those convicted can face up to a decade in prison.

In issuing the 2022 injunction, U.S. District Judge Liles C. Burke wrote that Alabama had produced no credible evidence to show that gender-affirming treatments are “experimental.”

A federal appeals court reversed that decision in August. “The use of these medications in general — let alone for children — almost certainly is not ‘deeply rooted’ in our nation’s history and tradition,” a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit wrote in its 59-page ruling, citing the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

In November, attorneys for Alabama also requested that the 11th Circuit stay the enforcement of the district court’s preliminary injunction, which the court granted Thursday in a brief unsigned order.