A federal judge on Friday blocked part of a new Alabama law criminalizing the performance of gender-transition procedures on minors.
The law, signed by Alabama governor Kay Ivey in April, also designates the prescribing of puberty blockers or hormones treatments to minors as a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison. Under state law, a minor is defined as any resident under 19 years old.
U.S. District Judge Liles Burke ruled on Friday to allow the prohibition on gender-transition surgeries to remain in effect but granted a temporary injunction to block the sections of the law banning prescription of puberty blockers and hormone medication, in response to a lawsuit.
Parents “have a fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children,” Burke wrote in his opinion. “This right includes the more specific right to treat their children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.”
Burke explained that “the uncontradicted record evidence is that at least twenty-two major medical associations in the United States endorse transitioning medications as well-established, evidence-based treatments for gender dysphoria in minors.”
Burke allowed another part of the law to remain in place, which bars teachers and other school officials from concealing a student’s transgender status from his or her parents.
In a separate complaint against the Alabama law, the U.S. Justice Department said in April that the bill “discriminates against transgender youth by denying them access to certain forms of medically necessary care.”
The Alabama bill went into effect on May 8 and was the first piece of legislation in the U.S. to outlaw the prescription of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors. The Arkansas state legislature passed a law in 2021 banning gender-transition procedures for minors, overriding Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto, but a judge subsequently blocked it from going into effect.