Missouri AG defends blocking gender treatments for children: ‘We’ve got to reset’

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has defended his move to regulate clinics that offer gender transition procedures and drugs to minors. Bailey says that the new emergency regulations he issued are about safeguarding children from experimental treatments.

The emergency regulation requires a child’s parents to be informed of the experimental nature of the drugs, potential side effects such as brain swelling and blindness, and that such treatments for minors have been restricted in European countries such as Sweden. Bailey says that the regulation is about “protecting the children.”

The regulation is the latest effort from Bailey to halt gender transition procedures in the state. Last month, in response to a whistleblower affidavit, he launched an investigation into the Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The whistleblower accuses the clinic of prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones for children without parental consent.

A number of Republican-controlled states have advanced legislation in recent months that would ban children from receiving gender transition drugs such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, as well as gender transition surgeries. Bailey says he would like to see similar legislation enacted in Missouri.

Bailey’s emergency regulation has drawn criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union in Missouri, which accused him of trying to enact a ban on “life-saving health care.”