In late May, Chris Hartman, the executive director of the Fairness Campaign in Kentucky, told a group at NKY Pride in Covington that the main portion of Senate Bill 150 focused on banning gender-affirming care.
“Banning gender-affirming care, of course, is the crux of Senate Bill 150,” Hartman said in May. “They did take out mental health care. Mental health care was originally in the bill. That language was stricken, so arguably you still can’t access, for your youth, gender-affirming mental health care.”
Senate Bill 150 is an “omnibus” bill that prohibits schools from teaching sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, forces transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with the gender assigned at birth, and allows teachers to deadname transgender students.
The law also bans puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgery, or hormones for those under the age of 18 — this is the gender-affirming care portion of the law.
The part of the law for gender-affirming care was set to go into effect Thursday before a U.S. District Judge issued an injunction Wednesday that temporarily blocks the portion of the bill regarding healthcare.
U.S. District Judge David Hale issued the injunction — which blocks the law until it can play out in court — in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, known as the ACLU, which filed suit in May.
What is gender-affirming care?
The World Health Organization defines gender-affirming care as a “range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity.”
The care allows transgender people to get care for the numerous aspects of their lives that align with their gender identity.
The timing is also essential, according to WHO, and a child’s age, cognitive, and physical development, along with parental consent, is always considered. Very rarely does gender surgery occur in patients under the age of 18.
“Gender-affirming care is any care that is delivered with both cultural and clinical competency which is informed by the lived experience of trans and nonbinary people,” said Jerrica Kirkley, co-founder and chief medical officer at the transgender health company Plume to the 19th — a publication that reports on gender, politics, and policy.
During testimony in the spring, Christopher Bolling, a pediatrician from Northern Kentucky, said that “gender-affirming care is the standard of care and is supported by the preponderance of research.”
He also said this type of care is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the National Adult Endocrine Society, the American College of Physicians, the World Health World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
“What do I mean by gender-affirming care? Because I have a feeling that’s a little bit of a hot-button issue for certain people. Gender-affirming care means comprehensive care screening for mental health of all sorts — anxiety, depression — as well as gender identity issues,” Bolling said. “And it means being able to be open to all the possibilities for these families and patients who are suffering.”
In his ruling providing injunctive relief — or temporarily blocking the ban in Kentucky — U.S. District Judge David Hale cited the same medical organizations mentioned by Bolling.
“The Court finds that the treatments barred by SB 150 are medically appropriate and necessary for some transgender children under the evidence-based standard of care accepted by all major medical organizations in the United States,” Hale wrote in his ruling.
For some transgender people, gender-affirming drugs are often called “life-saving” because they experience gender dysphoria, or “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity,” according to the American Psychiatric Association.
Not all transgender people experience gender dysphoria, but drugs and transitioning often help alleviate symptoms.
“These drugs have a long history of safe use in minors for various conditions,” Hale wrote.” “It is undisputed that puberty-blockers and hormones are not given to prepubertal children with gender dysphoria.”
Miles Joyner, a trans man and licensed social worker from Louisville, said during testimony in the spring that he provides gender-affirming care for children.
“I treat children right now, and I’m not ashamed to say that gender-affirming care for them is ethical, moral, and compassionate,” Joyner said.
In a statement about Hale’s ruling, Attorney General Daniel Cameron — also the Republican nominee for governor — said that the law “protects children from the irreversible effects of experimental chemical treatments like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.”
Cameron said that the procedures aren’t based on science — something those in the trans community say is misinformation as the procedures very rarely happen for those under 18, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines state that patients must be at least 16 years of age.
“Unfortunately, there is stigma attached to gender nonconformity in many societies around the world,” the guidelines say. “Such stigma can lead to prejudice and discrimination, resulting in ‘minority stress.'”