The vast majority of Southern states have prohibited “gender-affirming care” for minors, encompassing hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgery.
According to The Hill, 12 out of the 16 typically recognized Southern states have enacted these laws since 2021, constituting over half of all transgender-related bans nationwide.
These laws primarily prevent medical practitioners from administering such treatments to minors, with Florida and Missouri even extending the prohibition to include adults.
The four remaining Southern states, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, have not yet adopted such laws. However, Republicans in the state legislatures of Virginia and South Carolina introduced comparable bills earlier this year.
In three out of the 12 states where such laws were enacted, Louisiana, Kentucky and North Carolina, the bills were vetoed by Democratic governors, only to be overridden by GOP-dominated legislatures.
A similar scenario unfolded in Arkansas in 2021, when the state legislature overturned former Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s (R-AR) veto, resulting in the nation’s first transgender care ban becoming law.
Supporters of transgenderism, often associated with far-left activists, who advocate for the belief that there are more than two genders and that gender changes can be chosen at will, have expressed frustration over their inability to halt this legislation, primarily due to the prevailing dominance of the Republican Party in the region.
Logan Casey, senior policy researcher for the Movement Advanced Project, commented, “Many of the states in the South are effectively a single-party government.”
Director of communications at the Campaign for Southern Equality, Adam Polanski, said, “We’ve seen a long history of the South being used as a laboratory for anti-LGBT legislation.”
Consequently, leftist groups have attempted to gather funds to cover travel expenses for families who hold the belief that their children are transgender. The aim is to enable these families to travel to states that endorse such practices, often located at considerable distances from their current locations.
While activists have filed lawsuits in an attempt to challenge and overturn these bans, the courts have increasingly sided with the state-level prohibitions.
In July, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals removed an injunction that had been imposed on Tennessee’s transgender ban by a lower court. Just six days later, the same Circuit Court also lifted an injunction on Kentucky’s ban. Furthermore, on Monday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a year-long injunction on Alabama’s ban.
Block lifted on Alabama's ban on sex changes for minors https://t.co/yHmP3QB3Yb
— Georgia Log Cabin (@GeorgiaLogCabin) August 25, 2023
