Attorney General Paxton has joined an Alabama-led amicus brief in the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that asks the Court to rehear a case concerning an Arkansas law that prohibits healthcare professionals from using hormones and surgeries to sexually “transition” children.  

A Fifth Circuit panel affirmed a lower court’s injunction of the Arkansas law, but in doing so ignored prior precedent and relied upon a flawed interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. 

As the brief states: “[I]ndependently weighing the harms and benefits of proposed treatments is one of the important roles that States and other governments fulfill. . . . [T]he States . . . took a sober look at the medical literature and determined that ‘[t]he risks of gender transition procedures far outweigh any benefit at this stage of clinical study.’ So it banned the sterilizing treatments for minors. That determination was the State’s to make—no different than if it had banned medical marijuana or euthanasia.” 

Click here to read the amicus brief.