Republican AGs Warn Garland Not to Prosecute Dissenting Voices on ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Kids

Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti and a group of twelve other state attorneys general delivered a letter to Merrick Garland on Wednesday demanding that the Department of Justice refrain from prosecuting individuals who question the wisdom of providing “gender-affirming care” to minors.

Skrmetti’s letter comes as a reply to another letter addressed to Garland earlier this month from the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Children’s Hospital Association. In that document, the three organizations requested that the U.S. attorney general “investigate the organizations, individuals, and entities coordinating, provoking, and carrying out bomb threats and threats of personal violence against children’s hospitals and physicians across the U.S.”

“We emphatically agree that anyone engaged in violent crime or threats of violence should be investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities. But the medical organizations are asking you for much more than that,” asserted Skrmetti and his peers in their letter, which was obtained by Fox News. “They are asking you to direct the criminal enforcement power of the federal government not only at those committing or threatening violence but also at those whose speech may ‘provoke’ such threats.”

They went on to characterize the groups’ request as overly “broad” and said its authors are intent on “suppressing ideas with which they disagree.”

While the medical associations referred to the administration of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgeries as “evidence-based health care,” the attorneys general pointed out that other countries are backing away from these treatments, accusing the authors of failing to show the “intellectual humility,” the gravity of the topic demands.

In the United Kingdom, the country’s only youth gender clinic was closed after a review found that the clinic was too eager to administer puberty blockers, the least intrusive of these treatments.

Similarly, Sweden has all-but-banned the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors and Finland will allow their use “only if it can be ascertained that their identity as the other sex is of a permanent nature and causes severe dysphoria.” France’s National Academy of Medicine is also urging caution.

“We respectfully demand that you stand down and allow the national conversation to continue. Now is a time for more speech, not less. Each side must have the opportunity to marshal evidence, make its case, and attempt to persuade the American people of the rightness of its position. This is the process most likely to attain the truth and promote effective policymaking,” argued Skrmetti and the other Republicans who signed on to the letter.

Their pleas come in the face of renewed allegations that the DOJ has, under Garland’s leadership, been weaponized against the Biden administration’s political opponents.

Last week, a number of armed FBI agents showed up at the home of a pastor known to pray outside of abortion clinics in Philadelphia to arrest him in front of his wife and children for previously dismissed charges. The DOJ has been alleged to have been more slow-footed in addressing the wave of violent attacks on pro-life crisis pregnancy centers around the country.