Legal bid to halt Missouri's gender-affirming care restrictions gets a court hearing this week

Missouri now bans most transgender minors from receiving hormone therapy or puberty blockers. Opponents say the new law violates the Missouri Constitution's equal protection guarantees.
Opponents of a law that would bar most transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming care in Missouri will get a hearing this week in Springfield.

A number of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit earlier this summer seeking to block a law that prohibits transgender minors from receiving care such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria. The suit contends that the law violates constitutional rights to equal protection.

“Just as one cannot be discriminated against because of their sex under the federal equal protection clause, the same applies for Missourians under the Missouri Constitution,” said Gillian Wilcox, the ACLU of Missouri’s deputy director of litigation, in late July. “And so that is the claim that this is sex discrimination. Because Missourians are being targeted both because of their transgender status and because of their sex assigned at birth. And the medication that they are allowed or not allowed to receive is based solely on that status.”