A federal appeals court upheld an Oklahoma law banning gender-affirming care for minors, citing a June Supreme Court decision to uphold a similar law in Tennessee. Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 613, signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2023, makes it a felony for healthcare workers to provide treatments including puberty-blocking drugs and hormones to affirm a minor’s perception of their gender or biological sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex. The ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU of Oklahoma represented the plaintiffs, who claimed the state lawmakers adopted the law with discriminatory intent. A federal judge in Tulsa declined to stop S.B. 613 from taking effect in 2023, stating that transition-related care for young people is an area in ongoing medical and policy debate.
The federal court has upheld Oklahoma’s law prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors. Sac 924
