Justice Department challenges criminalization of gender-affirming care in Alabama

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday it is challenging an Alabama law that criminalized giving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to transgender minors. 

The DOJ says the “new law’s felony ban on providing certain medically necessary care to transgender minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”

The law makes giving puberty blockers to individuals under 19 years old a felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. 

Those against puberty blockers say they harm the individuals biologically, there are not enough long-term studies on the issue and children can not make such an impactful decision for their bodies at that young of an age. 

Activists for transgender children argue the puberty blockers are not harmful and give them time to explore their gender. 

The department describes the blockers as “necessary medical care” and in its lawsuit asked the court to block the law from going into effect. 

“There are very real challenges facing our young people, especially with today’s societal pressures and modern culture,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said when signing the law earlier this month. “I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl.”

“We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life,” Ivey said.

The Justice Department says the legislation discriminates ​​on the basis of sex and transgender status, which violates the Equal Protection Clause. 

“It further discriminates against transgender youth by barring them from accessing particular procedures while allowing non-transgender minors to access the same or similar procedures,” the department wrote. 

Alabama was already facing another lawsuit regarding the legislation that was brought on by families and physicians.