The American Civil Liberties Union branch in Arkansas announced last week that they’re suing the state’s anti-transgender healthcare law, which bans doctors from providing gender-affirming healthcare including reversible puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries to trans youth.

Four families with trans children, along with two doctors who provide gender-affirming healthcare, represented by ACLU Arkansas, have filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the law before it goes into effect in July.

Most recognized, mainstream medical associations agree that gender-affirming healthcare is necessary for trans youth who need it.

Children who aren’t able to access gender affirming healthcare experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide than trans youth who have supportive doctors and families, studies find.

In the last year more than half of trans and nonbinary youth were at risk of suicide according to Trevor Project’s National Mental Health Survey.

Access to puberty blockers during adolescence is inversely associated with lifetime suicidal ideation among trans adults.

Here are some excerpts from ACLU Arkansas press release on the unconstitutionality of the law:

“Puberty delaying treatment, which pauses puberty so that young people can have time and space to confirm who they are without the permanent physical changes of puberty, is part of the well-established standards of care for treating many transgender youth. Puberty-delaying treatments have been used for decades to treat cisgender children experiencing precocious puberty, and are completely safe and totally reversible..”

“While Arkansas’ new law prohibits the time-sensitive medical care that Brooke (one of the trans children who will be affected by this law) needs, the law allows cisgender youth to receive the same gender-affirming care, including both puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to help align their bodies with their gender, such as to address breast development in boys or facial hair in girls. The law bans the care only when provided to affirm the gender of transgender youth. Such brazen discrimination cannot be reconciled with the Constitution.”
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If you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or is at risk of suicide, contact Trevor Project’s Lifeline 24/7/365 at 1-866-488-7386.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255