In Koe v. Noggle, (ND GA, Aug. 20, 2023), a Georgia federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement of Georgia’s ban on hormone replacement therapy for treatment of gender dysphoria in minors. The court said in part:
… SB 140 is subject to intermediate scrutiny both because it classifies on the basis of natal sex … Adams, and because it places a special burden on nonconformity with sex stereotypes….
First, the preliminary record evidence of the medical risks and benefits of hormone therapy shows that a broad ban on the treatment is not substantially likely to serve the state’s interest in protecting children….
… [I]t should be recalled that the question put to the Court is not what the correct course of treatment is for an adolescent with gender dysphoria. The question is whether Georgia has shown an “exceedingly persuasive justification” for the challenged legislative scheme—a scheme that prohibits clinicians and parents from determining the correct course of treatment on an individualized basis, and which does so in a sex-based manner in that it imposes this prohibition only when it comes to “hormone replacement therapy” as a treatment for gender dysphoric youth….
… Defendants’ position that the quality of the existing evidence supporting hormone therapy justifies a ban of that therapy is not persuasive.
The court’s decision was handed down one day before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes Georgia) issued an opinion vacating a preliminary injunction against Alabama’s ban on hormone treatment for minors with gender dysphoria. (See prior posting.) The Hill reports on the decision.