A St. Louis County judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Missouri attorney general’s rule limiting gender-affirming care.
St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s emergency rule until May 15 unless she extends it. She also scheduled a May 11 hearing over the lawsuit challenging the rule.
Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, and the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner filed a petition last week seeking the temporary restraining order on behalf of Southampton Community Healthcare, two trans adults, and the families of two transgender adolescents.
Before gender-affirming medical treatments can be provided by physicians, the Attorney General’s emergency rule requires people to have experienced an “intense pattern” of documented gender dysphoria for three years and to have received at least 15 hourly sessions with a therapist over at least 18 months.
Patients also would first have to be screened for autism and “social media addiction,” and any psychiatric symptoms from mental health issues would have to be treated and resolved, reports WABI5.
In her ruling, Judge Ellen H. Ribaudo wrote that Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) had executed a “novel use” of power when he issued an emergency order last month laying out a fleet of regulations that would have made it difficult for most trans adults in the state to access cross-sex hormones. Bailey issued the order under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which forbids unlawful practices in connection with the “sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce.”
Noting that using the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act to promulgate emergency rules is something that has never been tried before, it has become “an invasion of the function reserved to the legislature,” Ribaudo wrote in her order.
ibaudo scheduled a hearing for 1 p.m. on May 11 to determine whether the court will place a preliminary injunction, which would stop the emergency rule until the completion of the lawsuit.
Gillian Wilcox, deputy director of litigation for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which filed suit on behalf of transgender Missourians, applauded the ruling.
Today’s ruling marks a win for transgender Missourians over an unprecedented attempt by the Attorney General to unilaterally legislate and harm their right to self-expression, bodily autonomy, and access to lifesaving health care,” Wilcox said in a statement.
