Federal court rejects challenge to Oklahoma law banning gender transition treatment for minors

A federal appeals court upheld an Oklahoma law banning gender transition medical treatment for minors.

The law, Senate Bill 613, makes it a felony for health care workers to provide gender transition treatment such as puberty-blocking drugs and hormones to a minor.

The bill was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2023.

Five families of transgender children and a physician challenged the state’s law, arguing it violated their constitutional rights.

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The plaintiffs, represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Oklahoma, argued that lawmakers approved the law with discriminatory intent, pointing to a 2022 law that froze pandemic relief funding for the hospital system OU Health unless Oklahoma Children’s Hospital halted gender transition treatment for minors.

A federal judge declined to block the law from taking effect in 2023, writing that transgender medical care for children is “an area in which medical and policy debate is unfolding” and the state “can rationally take the side of caution before permitting irreversible medical treatments of its children.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a similar Tennessee ban on transgender-related treatment, a ruling relied upon when the 10th Circuit issued its ruling in Oklahoma on Wednesday, when a three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Oklahoma’s law is constitutional.

The laws in Tennessee and Oklahoma “are functionally indistinguishable,” Circuit Judge Joel M. Carson, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in the order.

The order says Oklahoma’s law does not violate the Constitution and was not intended to discriminate against transgender children.

“We recognize the importance of this issue to all involved,” Carson wrote. “But this remains a novel issue with disagreement on how to assure children’s health and welfare. We will not usurp the legislature’s judgment when it engages in ‘earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality’ of gender transition procedures for minors.”

“While we respect that Plaintiffs disagree with the legislature’s assessment of such procedures’ risks, that alone does not invalidate a democratically enacted law on rational-basis grounds,” the judge added.

Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the court’s ruling in a post on social media.

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“For years, radical left activists pushed the lie of ‘gender transition’ procedures for minors. The truth is much simpler: there is no such thing,” he wrote Thursday on X. “Today, here in Oklahoma, we celebrate a new decision from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that recognizes this truth and protects our children. I am proud to have fought this battle and won. This is a victory for our children, for our Constitution, and for common sense.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, described Wednesday’s ruling as “a devastating outcome for transgender youth and their families across Oklahoma and another tragic result of the Supreme Court’s errant and harmful ruling” in the Tennessee case.

“Oklahoma’s ban is openly discriminatory and provably harmful to the transgender youth of this state, putting political dogma above parents, their children, and their family doctors,” the attorneys said in a joint statement. “While we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all transgender people and their families across Oklahoma to know we will never stop fighting for the future they deserve and their freedom to be themselves.”