Attorney General Steve Marshall is leading the charge to protect an Ohio law currently being challenged in the courts that bans transgender surgeries for minors.
Alabama recently won its fight for a similar ban this month after activist groups dropped their challenge to Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act (VCAP), which prohibits experimental sex-change procedures for minors.
The Ohio law was similarly challenged in district court, where an injunction was granted, preventing the law from going into effect.
As with many actions in similar states, Marshall led a 24-state brief with the Ohio Supreme Court, challenging the evidence used by witnesses to advocate for sex-change procedures for minors. Specifically, attorneys for the plaintiffs followed suit in every similar lawsuit by pushing the so-called standards of care promulgated by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
The brief calls on the Ohio Supreme Court to grant review of the decision by the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals.
Marshall also argued that the state court of appeals got things backward by deferring to WPATH rather than the state legislature on matters of medical regulation, stating that government exists to regulate private interest groups and medical providers, not the other way around.
“Even after Alabama uncovered the devastating court-ordered discovery that dismantled the thinly veiled medical guidelines, the Ohio courts still cherrypicked amicus briefs filed in another case to find that WPATH’s guidelines are the prevailing standards of care that Ohio somehow became powerless to disagree with,” stated Marshall. “The court should have instead deferred to the government’s regulation protecting vulnerable children who deserve so much better than WPATH’s faulty ‘standards.’”
Marshall used identical arguments in the Ohio brief that led to his success in defending Alabama’s VCAP.
Marshall’s office argued that key medical organizations like WPATH misled parents, promoted unproven treatments as settled science, and ignored growing international concern over the use of sex-change procedures to treat gender dysphoria in minors. Alabama’s investigation also uncovered internal communications showing that WPATH’s “Standards of Care” document was drafted with input from lawyers and advocacy organizations to win lawsuits and influence policy decisions.
In April 2022, Gov. Kay Ivey signed VCAP into law, which prohibits doctors in Alabama from performing transgender operations or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to individuals under 19.
VCAP went into effect on May 8, 2022, but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Liles Burke a few days later. Burke's injunction came after multiple parties added themselves as plaintiffs in a case challenging the law, including five minors identified as transgender through their parents, the United States of America, and Kaitlin Toyama, an attorney-advisor with the civil rights division of the DOJ.
In August 2023, the 11th Circuit ruled the district court had erroneously enjoined state officials from enforcing VCAP. Attorney General Steve Marshall's office then asked the Court to reverse the injunction, pending further litigation. In February, the 11th Circuit granted the state's request and struck down the injunction, allowing the state to enforce VCAP while awaiting a full trial scheduled in August.
During the court proceedings, Burke accused 11 attorneys of left-wing groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union of “judge shopping” and one of lying under oath.
Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia joined Alabama in its Ohio brief.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email [email protected].
Don't miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
