{"id":41869,"date":"2021-05-17T14:53:27","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T14:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=41869"},"modified":"2021-05-17T14:53:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T14:53:32","slug":"primer-why-the-arkansas-transgender-care-ban-is-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=41869","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Primer: Why the Arkansas transgender care ban is unconstitutional&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/arktimes.com\/arkansas-blog\/2021\/05\/16\/primer-why-the-arkansas-transgender-care-ban-is-unconstitutional\" target=\"_blank\">AR Times<\/a>: &#8220;Not that Rep. Robin Lundstrum or any of the other self-proclaimed experts in the Arkansas legislature will read it or care, but\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2021\/05\/anti-transgender-children-laws-unconstitutional\/618864\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u2019s an excellent article explaining<\/a>\u00a0why the news Arkansas law prohibiting medical care for transgender minors is not only cruel and unhealthy for children but unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.,<\/strong>&nbsp;a University of Alabma law professor, writes in the Atlantic:ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Laws that prohibit physicians from providing treatments such as<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/04\/06\/politics\/arkansas-transgender-health-care-veto-override\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0puberty blockers and cross-hormone therapy<\/a>\u00a0to minors are bad public policy. Their advocates claim that these are efforts to protect kids, who they argue may later change their mind, from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/04\/06\/politics\/arkansas-transgender-health-care-veto-override\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">medical treatments they characterize as irreversible<\/a>. But\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lww.com\/prsgo\/fulltext\/2021\/03000\/regret_after_gender_affirmation_surgery__a.22.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">these arguments don\u2019t hold up to scrutiny<\/a>: The laws\u2014such as the one Arkansas just passed and those that more than a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2021\/04\/08\/states-consider-bills-medical-treatments-transgender-youth\/7129101002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dozen other states<\/a>, including Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas, are actively considering\u2014will certainly harm transgender children, denying them medical care that they need and causing them psychological pain. That should be reason enough to oppose these laws.<\/p><p>But even those who are skeptical of today\u2019s gender politics should oppose these laws for another reason: They clearly violate the U.S. Constitution.<\/p><p>The most obvious, and compelling, constitutional objection to Arkansas\u2019s Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act and laws like it arises from the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s guarantee of equal protection under the law. That guarantee means, among other things, that a state government may not target one group of residents for discriminatory treatment arising from animus, dislike, or irrational fear.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AR Times: &#8220;Not that Rep. Robin Lundstrum or any of the other self-proclaimed experts in the Arkansas legislature will read it or care, but\u00a0here\u2019s an excellent article explaining\u00a0why the news Arkansas law prohibiting medical care for transgender minors is not only cruel and unhealthy for children but unconstitutional. Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.,&nbsp;a University of Alabma&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41870,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41869\/revisions\/41870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}