Lawsuit seeks to halt Missouri attorney general’s rules on gender-affirming care

Transgender advocates say the rules are unprecedented restrictions on adults’ ability to get hormone therapy and gender transition surgery.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s rules restricting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and adults are facing a legal challenge.

The ACLU of Missouri, Lambda Legal and the Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner law firm filed a suit in St. Louis County Court on Monday to prevent the emergency guidelines from going into effect Thursday. Among other arguments, the suit says Bailey is going well beyond his power to regulate consumer protection matters in pushing for the rules.

“He is sort of taking a law that is about refrigerators and using it to go after trans people and tell doctors and other medical providers how they can practice,” said Nora Huppert, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal.