BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador is leading a coalition of 21 states in challenging the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations for treating gender dysphoria in minors.
The coalition argues that the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones lacks sufficient evidence of safety and could violate consumer protection laws. Labrador claims these treatments may cause irreversible harm to children, while the ACLU and medical experts argue they are essential and medically safe for transgender youth.
The legal debate comes amid Idaho's own efforts to ban gender-affirming care for minors under House Bill 71.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
"They're misleading the public. By misleading the public, they're actually harming the children they're purporting to help," says Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador.
Attorney General Raúl Labrador is leading a coalition of 21 state attorneys general, including Florida, Texas, and Ohio, in challenging the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations for treating gender dysphoria in minors.
The coalition raised concerns about the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, arguing that the treatments could violate state consumer protection laws due to a lack of evidence supporting their safety and reversibility.
“They are not making decisions based on science. They are making decisions based on politics. They actually received a lot of political pressure from the Biden administration to claim that puberty blockers were safe for children,” says Labrador.
The attorneys general have requested documentation from the AAP to back its claims regarding the safety and reversibility of puberty blockers. Labrador points to studies from the UK that claim the treatments can cause long-term health issues, including bone density loss and potential infertility.
"It’s really clear that, first of all, they’re not safe... they affect the bodies of young children in a pretty damaging way, and they’re not reversible," says Labrador.
This challenge comes against the backdrop of Idaho’s House Bill 71, signed into law by Governor Brad Little in May 2023, which bans gender-affirming care for minors. The law prohibits medical providers from administering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to transgender youth under 18. Violators could face up to 10 years in prison.
However, Rebecca De León, spokesperson for the ACLU of Idaho, says that the medical community and peer-reviewed research support the use of gender-affirming care as a standard practice to address gender dysphoria in youth.
“We think that the Attorney General is in absolutely no position to question medical standards. He is in absolutely no position to question medical research and peer-reviewed, scientifically safe medical standards,” says De León, communications director for the ACLU of Idaho.
The ACLU, along with families and LGBTQ+ advocates, maintains that puberty blockers and gender-affirming treatments can provide crucial relief for transgender youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
“It is simply identity politics that have gotten in the way of normal medical practice," says De León.
But Labrador stands by his concerns.
“When you think about medicine in general, your whole intent and purpose as a doctor is to do no harm, every time that one of these children is treated with hormone treatment, or the worst-case scenario when they start cutting off body parts, they’re actually harming these kids,” says Attorney General Labrador.
