ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is asking a federal judge to reconsider a preliminary injunction issued late last week blocking enforcement of legislation limiting medical care for transgender minors.
A motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia cites a ruling the Atlanta-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued Monday lifting a preliminary injunction a federal court had imposed barring enforcement of similar legislation in Alabama.
“In its opinion, the Eleventh Circuit expressly addressed – and rejected – each of the core legal theories Plaintiffs here advanced in support of their motion for preliminary injunction,” Carr’s motion stated.
U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Geraghty ruled late Sunday that four Georgia families and a national organization of parents with transgender children likely would succeed on the merits of their challenge to a provision in Senate Bill 140 that bans hormone replacement therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents.
Geraghty declared that Georgia’s Senate Bill 140 violates transgender minors’ equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. If it stands, the preliminary injunction would prohibit the law from being enforced while the lawsuit moves forward.
The General Assembly’s Republican majorities passed SB140 last March, voting along party lines, Gov. Brian Kemp signed it two days later, and the measure took effect July 1.
Kemp and other supporters argued the law would protect minors from making life-altering decisions at such a young age.
“SB140 was … a good-faith effort to protect children from the irreversible, lifelong effects of experimental treatments with unproven benefits but well-documented risks to health and fertility,” Carr’s motion stated.
During the debate on the bill, legislative Democrats said delaying hormone replacement therapy or surgery for transgender youths until after age 18 could pose mental health risks. They cited higher-than-average suicide rates among transgender teens.