As expected, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has appealed a federal judge’s June 20 ruling that struck down the state’s first-of-its-kind ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Griffin filed a notice of appeal yesterday in federal court in Little Rock and announced the filing on Twitter:
Today I appealed the lower court decision blocking Arkansas’s SAFE Act to the Eighth Circuit. This is the next step in our fight to protect our state’s children. https://t.co/6kno1TfnXD #arnews pic.twitter.com/e1BIuDVRM4
— Attorney General Tim Griffin (@AGTimGriffin) July 20, 2023
The case now heads to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis. Though the Eighth Circuit is generally considered conservative, it’s previously been sympathetic to the plaintiffs in this case — Arkansas trans youth and their families who are suing the state over the SAFE (Save Adolescents from Experimentation) Act, the 2021 law banning the use of hormone therapy, puberty blockers and other medical gender-affirming care.
U.S. District Judge James Moody issued an injunction in 2021 that temporarily blocked the law. The state, represented by then-Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, asked the Eighth Circuit to throw out Moody’s injunction, but last August a three-judge panel of the appellate court unanimously declined to do so. The state sought a hearing from the full Eighth Circuit and was again rebuffed in November, although five of the court’s 11 judges dissented and would have granted the rehearing.
Since then, Moody has issued a final decision striking down the Arkansas law, all but guaranteeing the Eighth Circuit would be asked to weigh in again on the case.
The ACLU of Arkansas, which is representing the trans youth and their families in the lawsuit, said the state’s appeal was “predictable and severely misguided.”
“Politicians need to read and heed the judge’s order, be honest with the public about the safety of this life-saving care, and stop bullying young Arkansans and their families,” Holly Dickson, executive director of the Arkansas ACLU, said.
Since Arkansas passed the SAFE Act in 2021, a number of other red states have enacted similar bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. So far, most federal courts have not allowed those laws to go into effect, but that could be changing. Earlier this month, a divided three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit temporarily allowed a Tennessee law to take hold while they considered a broader appeal of the case. Though the ruling is temporary, it indicated the appellate judges were skeptical of plaintiffs’ claims that Tennessee’s ban, which resembles the Arkansas law, was unconstitutional.