Free Republic

A record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ people have become law in the past three years, but the majority of those that have faced legal challenges haven’t held up in court, according to an NBC News analysis, legal experts and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges against some of the laws. Just this year, state representatives introduced 491 bills aimed at restricting LGBTQ rights, with 77 of them becoming law, according to the ACLU. The majority of bills proposed and passed focused on limiting the ability of transgender youth to receive...

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said they plan to appeal the ruling to the Eighth CircuitA federal judge on Tuesday ruled an Arkansas law that bans hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery for transgender minors is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Jay Moody said that the first-in-the-nation law violated the due process and equal protection rights of transgender youth and their families and it violated the First Amendment rights of health care providers by prohibiting them from referring patients elsewhere. "Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical...

On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Arkansas’ law protecting children from experimental transgender “treatments” that often carry lifelong effects, including sterilization. In April, the Arkansas House and Senate voted to override Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s H.B. 1570, the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act. Experimental “puberty-blocking” drugs and cross-sex hormones may have long-lasting impacts on fertility, so advocates have branded them “chemical castration.” Yet opponents of the law claim that withdrawing “health care” will harm children. U.S. District Judge Jay Moody granted the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) request for a preliminary injunction, preventing the law from going into effect...