Legal advocates file petition that could block Missouri AG's rule to restrict trans care
Lambda Legal, ACLU of Missouri and Bryan Cave Leighton LLP filed a petition today that, if granted, would block Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's emergency rule that restricts gender-affirming care for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.
Bailey's emergency rule, which is set to take effect on Thursday, April 27, prohibits "experimental interventions to treat gender dysphoria" unless providers comply with a list of requirements. The rule applies to children and adults. The emergency rule states that gender-affirming care like puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy is "used in circumstances not supported by solid evidence," and because of that, it falls under the attorney general's purview of "protecting consumers, including minors, from harm and investigating fraud and abuse in the state’s health care payment system."
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“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,” Gillian Wilcox, deputy director for litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, said in the press release. “This usurping of power will not only inflict harm on transgender adolescents, but its application will immediately jeopardize the health care of transgender adults throughout the state. This chicanery is the Attorney General’s attempt to legislate and harm transgender Missourians while ignoring evidence-based medical treatment for his own political gain."
The lawsuit, Southampton Community Healthcare v. Bailey, was filed in the St. Louis County Circuit Court on behalf of Southampton Community Healthcare in St. Louis, Kelly Storck, Logan Casey, and the families of two transgender people.
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"Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's emergency order is a baseless and discriminatory attempt to limit the healthcare options for transgender individuals, who already face several barriers accessing necessary and life-saving medical care,” Dr. Samuel Tochtrop of Southampton Community Healthcare said in the statement. “It's our privilege as Southampton Community Healthcare to fight this rule on behalf of transgender Missourians."
The petition is seeking a temporary restraining order that would block the implementation of the rule, on the basis that Bailey has exceeded his authority as attorney general with the emergency rule.
"Our regulation enacts basic safeguards for interventions that an international medical consensus has determined to be experimental," Bailey said in an emailed response. "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."
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Legal advocacy groups file petition to halt Missouri emergency rule
