Another Court Lets Another State Keep Cruel Ban on Trans Youth Health Care

The 8th Circuit ruled Arkansas can uphold its ban, following the 10th Circuit’s decision in Oklahoma last week and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Tennessee in June.

By Danielle Han | August 13, 2025 | 6:15pm

Photo: iStockphoto Politics

Another Court Lets Another State Keep Cruel Ban on Trans Youth Health Care

In 2023, a district judge blocked Arkansas’s SAFE Act (SB49), a policy that banned transgender treatment for minors, ruling it unconstitutional. But in an act of lawfare on Tuesday, a federal court reversed the injunction–and upheld the ban in an 8-2 ruling.

The “Save Adolescents from Experimentation” legislation, originally passed in 2021, prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming treatments to Arkansans under 18. While the bill was initially shot down by then-Governor Asa Hutchinson for being “a vast government overreach,” the state’s legislature overrode the GOP leader’s veto one day later. It was again challenged by four families of transgender children and two doctors, arguing it violated their constitutional rights—specifically the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment—and the judge ruled in their favor in 2023. “Every parent has the right to seek medical care for their children,” read the decision. Then came along the 8th Circuit.

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“This is a tragically unjust result for transgender Arkansans, their doctors, and their families,” executive director of ACLU Arkansas Holly Dickson said in a statement after the ruling. “The state had every opportunity and failed at every turn to prove that this law helps children; in fact, this is a dangerous law that harms children.”

The ruling follows the Supreme Court’s June decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in 2024 (the 8th Circuit cited Skrmetti 25 times in 35 pages). “Because the district court rested its permanent injunction on incorrect conclusions of law, it abused its discretion,” it says. Last week, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Oklahoma’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, also citing the Supreme Court case.

Still, in the shadow of the Skrmetti precedent, some are holding out hope for an “uphill” battle. “[U.S. v] Skrmetti made it a lot easier for these states to continue to enforce these bans,” Cathryn Oakley, the senior director of legal policy for Human Rights Campaign, told the Washington Post. “But that doesn’t mean there is no hope in overturning them.”

Except, the silver linings are incredibly thin. Attorney General Tim Griffin revelled in the ruling, saying he “applaud[s] the court’s decision” and that children in Arkansas are now “protected from risky, experimental procedures with lifelong consequences.” His anti-trans rhetoric resounded among his co-legislators. “This is not medicine; this affirmation is not science. We are mutilating kids,” Senator Alan Clark said of the former injunction (funnily enough: this is the same guy who claimed bigger health risks from the covid vaccine than the virus itself).

“The law has already had a profound impact on families across Arkansas who all deserve a fundamental right to do what is best for their children,” Dickson said in her statement. “As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want transgender Arkansans to know they are far from alone and we remain as determined as ever to secure their right to safety, dignity, and equal access to the health care they need.”

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