ATLANTA — Three Georgia families are asking the courts to step in and stop the state's soon-to-be-enacted gender-affirming care ban for minors.
Beth Littrell, Senior Supervising Attorney at Southern Poverty Law Center, said the lawsuit has been planned for some time. Efforts continued when the law was signed earlier this year.
"We certainly let the legislators know who were contemplating passing this law that it was unconstitutional," Littrell said. "So, you know, I think we've known that there would be a legal challenge and we were able to get it on file before the law went into effect."
Gov. Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 140 in March, which is supposed to go into effect Saturday. The legislation bans most types of gender-affirming care for minors, such as gender reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy. However, puberty blockers are still allowed.
Parents in the lawsuit are arguing on the grounds that their rights are being violated in that they cannot make decisions about their children's health care. These parents have also requested a court order to proceed with the legal battle anonymously to ensure their safety and dodge any hostility that has already been present in conversations surrounding SB 140. TransParent, a national organization of parents with transgender children, is also named as a plaintiff in the suit.
Littrell explained some families have even considered leaving the state of Georgia and the country in order to ensure their children have access to gender-affirming care - a burden Littrell said the families should not have to take on.
"For the state to come in and add another to target them intentionally and add another challenge, one that could be life-threatening is really outrageous," Littrell said.
The families and TransParent are asking for Georgia's court to rule that the ban violates federal law; specifically, it points out the due process and equal protection clauses in the Fourteen Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They also ask for all legal fees to be paid.
"Georgia law is unique in that it bans one aspect of the medication treatment for gender dysphoria—hormone therapy—while allowing the provision of puberty blockers—even though they go hand-in-hand as part of the full complement of appropriate medical care," critics of the law said in the lawsuit.
Several states, such as Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida have enacted similar laws. Federal courts have blocked laws limiting gender-affirming care in Alabama and Arkansas.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU of Georgia, the Human Rights Campaign and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia are some of the organizations who are supporting the lawsuit and vocal critics of the state's law.