State Bans on Gender Affirming Health Care are 'Despicable' Assault on Bodily Autonomy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Nancy Rodriguez, media@acslaw.org

Washington, DC -- The American Constitution Society released the following statement in response to the proliferation of state legislation seeking to ban or severely restrict the availability of gender affirming health care for young people:

“The onslaught of harmful state legislation seeking to deny gender affirming health care for transgender and gender-diverse youth, while not new, has become more pervasive and crueler in 2023, with the bill passed by the Kentucky legislature last night being only the latest example,” said ACS President Russ Feingold. “Such legislation, passed in Utah, South Dakota, and Mississippi earlier this year, and similar laws already on the books in several states, seek to use children as political pawns. The conservative movement’s hostility towards the health and safety of children and its broader assault on bodily autonomy are despicable. These bills and laws have no sound legal or medical basis and result in irreparable harm to young people and their families. If these legislators really cared about transgender and gender diverse children, they would follow the science and follow the lead of the LGBTQ+ community.”

###

AMERICAN CONSTITUTION SOCIETY
The American Constitution Society is a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-partisan legal organization. Through a diverse nationwide network of progressive lawyers, law students, judges, scholars, advocates, and many others, our mission is to support and advocate for laws and legal systems that strengthen our democratic legitimacy, uphold the rule of law, and redress the founding failures of our Constitution and enduring inequities in our laws in pursuit of realized equality. For more information, visit us at www.acslaw.org or on Twitter @acslaw.