Missouri’s limits on gender-affirming care for minors and adults in the state will be paused for two weeks, a state judge ruled Monday.
St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo’s order means that, for now, some of the nation’s widest-reaching limits on gender-affirming care will be paused as she considers whether to block them for a longer period as a legal challenge plays out.
The judge set a hearing for May 11 on the request for a preliminary injunction brought by trans Missourians and health care providers against the restrictions issued last month by Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
The restrictions were set to go into effect last week, but Ribaudo previously temporarily blocked enforcement of them to give herself more time to consider the issue before making a ruling Monday.
A number of GOP-led states have in recent years enacted bans on such care for minors, but Missouri’s rules represented the first time a state has attempted to impose such restrictions on trans adults.
The limits were issued by Bailey in the form of an “emergency rule” that claimed that people often take “life-altering interventions,” like pubertal suppression or gender transition surgery, “without any talk therapy at all,” and that the emergency action is “needed because of a compelling governmental interest and a need to protect the public health, safety, and welfare” of Missourians.
Gillian Wilcox, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which is providing representation to the plaintiffs in the case, welcomed Monday’s order
“As was clear from the beginning, the attorney general’s claim of an emergency was proven an untruthful and dangerous attempt to get involved in individual and family medical decisions, showing that he will attack the very people he supposed to serve and…
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