Five transgender Louisiana minors and their families are suing the state over a ban on gender-affirming medical care, the New York Times reports.
The lawsuit filed in January by the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation says the state's Act 466, which was vetoed by Gov.
Jeff Landry in 2023, violates the equal protection of transgender youth.
"By selectively banning treatments for transgender youth, the Act deprives Louisiana transgender adolescents of medically necessary and often life-saving care that has proven to be effective in treating a transgender adolescent's gender dysphoria and addressing the depression, anxiety, and other serious health conditions that can result from untreated gender dysphoria," the plaintiffs write in the lawsuit.
Kevin Costello, the litigation director for the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, says the lawsuit is an important step for transgender youth who feel threatened by the ban.
"Our clients are generally all young kids, and they are all looking at this world in which their state government is taking affirmative steps to try to erase their identity out of existence," he tells the Times.
"It's scary for them."
Costello says the lawsuit will provide students in the Health Law & Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School with an opportunity to apply legal skills
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