FRANKFORT (LifeSiteNews) – U.S. District Judge David Hale has lifted a temporary injunction against a Kentucky law prohibiting the gender “transitioning” of minors, in what Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron is calling a “win for parents and children.”
Enacted in March when the state legislature overrode a veto by Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear, S.B. 150 forbids minors from being subjected to surgical or chemical “sex change” interventions, requires medical providers to wean minors off of already-dispensed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, prohibits classroom discussion of sexual or gender ideology, discourages state education officials from implementing or recommending “gender-affirming” policies such as using “preferred pronouns” or hiding transitions from parents, and restricts school restrooms and lockers to the correct sex.
ABC News reports that Hale issued a temporary injunction against the parts of the law concerning underage “transitions” last month, writing that a challenge by the parents of seven gender-confused children, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), had shown a “strong likelihood of success on the merits” a day before it was to take effect.
But Hale reversed himself Friday, almost a week after the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an injunction against a similar law in Tennessee.
READ: Federal court upholds Tennessee law protecting kids from transgender drugs, surgeries
“Today’s ruling is a win for parents and children,” said Cameron in a press release. “I’m grateful to the district court for doing what the law requires, which is protecting Kentucky kids from the irreversible harms that these experimental drug treatments would cause. Moving forward, my office will continue to defend Senate Bill 150 and stand up for the right of children to be children, free from the influences of leftist activists and radical gender ideology.”
“By securing a stay of the district court’s injunction, Attorney General Cameron demonstrates his willingness to fight for the rule of law and the protection of Kentucky’s children,” added Republican state Rep. Jennifer Decker. “It is well within the legislature’s power to ban the experimental use of off-label drugs that cause long-term, irreversible consequences for children, and it is fortunate that today’s ruling allows SB 150 to take effect pending the Attorney General’s appeal.”
ACLU of Kentucky legal director Corey Shapiro insisted that the reversal “is not the final word” on the case, and that they anticipate a “positive result” on appeal.
Evidence shows that “affirming” confusion about one’s sex carries severe harms, especially when such affirmation takes the form of physically transformative medical procedures on impressionable children who cannot fully grasp the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored “detransitioners,” individuals who attempted to live under a different “gender identity” before embracing their sex, attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion, as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject.
The danger of keeping parents in the dark about such situations is grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.