Carl Charles (’14), Senior Attorney at Lambda Legal, Julie Veroff (’18), Associate at Cooley LLP, and Malita Picasso (’19), Staff Attorney at the ACLU, LGBT & HIV Project, filed a Complaint challenging recently enacted Alabama law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, with U.S. District Judge Liles Burke granting a preliminary injunction in a parallel case stopping the state from enforcing the medication ban on May 13.

Their Complaint states:

“Instead of protecting transgender youth, the felony health care ban endangers them by making it a felony to provide them with medical care necessary to treat their gender dysphoria. . . . Without treatment, young people with gender dysphoria often suffer extreme distress, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. . . . Far from fulfilling its stated purpose of protecting the physical and mental health of transgender youth, the felony health care ban . . . will impose grave harm on transgender youth, their parents, and their medical providers.”

Malita also coauthored an article for the ACLU website, advocating:

“We will continue to fight in state legislatures and courts, but the true measure of our work must be preventing these laws from being introduced in the first place. We want more people to learn . . . that providing this care to transgender youth is supported by every major medical association; that this medical care is safe and effective; and when transgender youth are denied this care, it is more likely they will experience depression, struggle in school, and consider suicide.” (“Alabama Wants to Criminalize Medically-Necessary Care for Trans Youth. Two Dads are Fighting Back.” Apr. 13).