TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas judge on Friday protected access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors, as part of a legal challenge of a new Kansas law.
State District Court Judge Carl Folsom III ruled Friday that the state's ban, passed last year, is likely to violate the state Constitution. Folsom's order blocking the ban is set to remain in place until a lawsuit filed by two transgender teenagers and their parents is over. The trial has not yet been scheduled.
Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach promised to appeal the decision Friday, calling it “a stark example of judicial activism" that “invented a new constitutional right."
“Even though the Kansas Constitution says nothing about it, the judge created a new right of parents to obtain otherwise-illegal treatments for their children,” Kobach said in a statement.
The judge said the law interferes with parents' right to make medical decisions for their children. In a lengthy opinion, he described gender-affirming care as “the treatment with the most evidence of being helpful to treat gender dysphoria.”
“The Kansas Constitution protects personal autonomy,” Folsom wrote, citing the state's Bill of Rights. “This personal autonomy includes the fundamental right of parents to the care, custody and control of their minor children.”
Kansas courts have previously declared that the state Constitution offers more protection for individual rights than the U.S. Constitution. In 2019, the state Supreme Court declared that Kansas protects a person's bodily autonomy, which guarantees access to abortion.
Kobach, like other opponents of gender-affirming care for minors, portrayed it as “experimental” and harmful, but Folsom disagreed.
His order said the teenagers who sued, identified as Lily Loe and Ryan Roe, had to go to Minnesota and Colorado for treatment, both costing them more for out-of-state care and causing anxiety.
“It is harmful to withhold medical treatment or withdraw medical treatment in progress that is safe, effective and medically indicated,” Folsom wrote.
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