Above you’ll find the current map of bans on gender-affirming care (GAC) for minors; if you compare/contrast with previous posts, you’ll note some changes...
It’s a mess out there. Let’s see if I can bring some order to it.
Vetos and Overrides
The legislatures in both Louisiana (HB648) and North Carolina (H808) each recently passed their own bans on GAC for minors. The Governors in each state, to their credit, vetoed the measures.
Unfortunately, an override session has already been called in North Carolina and is set to happen this Thursday. In Louisiana, legislators are seriously considering calling an override session to—in particular—focus on overriding the veto on HB648.
If Louisiana overrides the veto, their ban on GAC for minors will go into effect on August 1. North Carolina’s ban—if the veto is overridden—would go into effect around August 28.
Court Battles Continue
The court action is heating up in the challenges to bans on GAC for minors. As first pointed out by Chris Geidner over at Law Dork, interesting Circuit splits are starting to take shape. While it is highly, highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would take up any of the current appellate litigation about preliminary injunctions (discussed below), this may be a preview of what is to come over the next few years.
Thus far, District Courts in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee have all issued friendly rulings to families seeking GAC for their kids—most of those rulings are preliminary injunctions blocking the enforcement of any GAC bans until litigation is resolved.
However, appeals to those preliminary injunctions have been noted in Florida (11th Circuit); Kentucky (6th Circuit); and Tennessee (6th Circuit).
In fact, just a few days ago the Sixth Circuit (in essence) resumed the enforcement of Tennessee’s ban on GAC for minors by issuing a ‘stay’ for the preliminary injunction which had been issued by the Middle District of Tennessee. Check Law Dork for a great writeup on the opinion.
Even more concerning, the Sixth Circuit has now consolidated the appeal of the Kentucky ruling with this Tennessee appeal. The cases are now on the same schedule, with briefing set to continue into next month.
Because of this, many assume that the preliminary injunction in Kentucky allowing continued GAC for minors will meet the same fate as the one in Tennessee. We should know before too much longer.