A federal judge allowed a Georgia law banning hormonal interventions for transgender youth to take effect earlier this week, in order to comply with a federal court ruling last month.
On August 21, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court’s injunction blocking state authorities from enforcing a similar law in Alabama.
In a decision criticized by LGBTQ advocates, Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, ruled that the district court had applied the wrong standard when determining whether to issue an injunction blocking the law.
Lagoa argued that there is no constitutional right of parents to “treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards,” as argued by plaintiffs.
This comes even though the Supreme Court, in numerous other legal battles, has ruled parents possess a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit.
As a result of Lagoa’s opinion, the Alabama law was allowed to go into effect. State authorities can punish doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors suffering from gender dysphoria.
Given the 11th Circuit’s jurisdiction over Georgia, it was only a matter of time before the courts allowed authorities in the Peach State to enforce a nearly identical law — which technically went into effect on July 1 — barring those under age 18 from accessing gender-affirming treatments.
On September 5, U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, of the Northern District of Georgia, issued an order pausing an injunction she issued on the day prior to the 11th Circuit’s decision.
In issuing that initial injunction, Geraghty found that a group of four transgender plaintiffs and their parents would suffer “irreparable harm” if the law were not halted while its constitutionality is debated in the courts.
Following the 11th Circuit’s decision, Geraghty paused the injunction, but refused — despite the protestations of proponents of the law — to completely vacate the injunction, reports The Hill.
As a result, Georgia can now discipline and potentially pull the medical licenses of practitioners who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors, including surgical and hormonal interventions.
Georgia’s law does contain a limited exception for youth who have already started hormone therapy by allowing them to continue their course of treatment, but bars new patients from accessing those same treatments.
And, hypocritically, Georgia’s law — which echoes similar legislation passed in 21 other states — also permits doctors to prescribe hormonal treatments and perform surgeries on intersex youth in order to “force” their bodies to conform to a binary gender expression or appearance.
In July, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a ban on gender-affirming care in Tennessee to take effect, ruling that a lower court judge applied the wrong legal standard in issuing an injunction blocking the law. That ruling was subsequently applied to overturn an injunction blocking a similar Kentucky law from being enforced.
Two major medical organizations have walked back their support for surgical interventions on transgender youth following a successful medical malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), which represents more than 11,000 plastic surgeons in the United States, told members to delay transition-related chest, genital, and facial surgeries until patients are at least 19, according to The Washington Post.
Fewer than 1,000 minors in the United States receive surgery for gender dysphoria each year, according to research published in JAMA, and the overwhelming majority of those procedures are mastectomies, or "top surgery," rather than genital surgeries, or "bottom surgery."
A New York State jury has awarded $2 million to a woman who underwent a double mastectomy at age 16 as part of treatment for gender dysphoria.
The verdict, which marks the first successful medical malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner, was announced last week following a three-week trial in White Plains, N.Y.
The plaintiff, 22-year-old Fox Varian of Yorktown Heights, accused her psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, and plastic surgeon, Dr. Simon Chin, of failing to obtain adequate consent by fully informing her of the risks associated with the procedure before she agreed to undergo it in 2019.
A recent study of injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis found that twice-yearly injections of lenacapavir -- marketed as Yeztugo by Gilead Sciences -- do not have clinically significant interactions with gender-affirming hormone therapy.
"In the most gender-diverse Phase III PrEP trial conducted to date, lenacapavir had no clinically significant impact on feminizing or masculinizing gender-affirming therapy concentrations," the study’s researchers concluded, as reported by POZ.
The study, led by Dr. Jill Blumenthal of the University of California San Diego, examined whether lenacapavir interacts with gender-affirming hormone therapy, including estradiol (a form of estrogen) and testosterone. Because those hormones are metabolized by enzymes such as CYP3A4 -- which lenacapavir can inhibit -- the researchers analyzed whether the drug altered hormone levels.
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