FIRST ON FOX: Nearly two dozen states — led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey — are warning that surgical gender transitions lack sufficient medical evidence to prove their safety in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court Monday.
Surgical sex-change procedures have sparked intense debate, particularly regarding minors. While many states are enacting restrictions and prosecuting doctors who perform these surgeries, liberal states are pushing to maintain broad access to these treatments.
"Every state has the right to protect our children from irreversible surgeries," Bailey said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "As the first state to successfully defend at the trial court a legal challenge to a law protecting children from gender mutilation, Missouri is now taking our litigation strategy to other states."
He added, "all children are worth defending."
The amicus brief supports North Carolina and West Virginia's federal cases dealing with "radical transgender ideology."
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sided with transgender plaintiffs in lawsuits against North Carolina and West Virginia, mandating both states to provide transgender sex-change procedures and treatments. The court argued in its ruling that excluding these procedures breached the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and constituted discrimination based on sex and gender identity.
"The science surrounding gender transition interventions is new and unsettled," the amicus brief states. "The World Health Organization classified transgender identity as a mental health disorder until just five years ago. These recent, enormous changes make the Fourth Circuit’s core presumption—that these interventions are proven safe and effective—as perplexing as it is demonstrably erroneous."
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming all signed onto the brief.
The amicus brief cites an article from the Economist in April 2023 that stated there is a broad consensus that "the evidence is lacking" for these treatments. The brief notes that countries across Europe, including the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Norway and Sweden, have voiced concerns that the risks "outweigh the benefits." Finland, for instance, has labeled these interventions for minors as "experimental" and suggests that treatment should generally remain at the level of "talking therapy" or counseling.
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More than a dozen states in the U.S. have enacted bans on surgical procedures and hormonal prescriptions for transgender youth.
Idaho, North Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama have passed laws making it a felony to perform sex changes on children. Several blue states, meanwhile, have enacted "sanctuary state" laws in recent years shielding medical providers from facing penalties for conducting transgender procedures on adolescents.
