Arkansas Gender-Affirming Care Ban Reinstated

Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Arkansas Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

By: Paul Goldberg, Senior Editor | JRL CHARTS – LGBT Politics

LITTLE ROCK, AR — (August 13, 2025) — The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Arkansas may enforce its controversial 2021 ban on gender-affirming care for minors, reversing a lower court decision that had struck the law down as unconstitutional.

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The decision follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which upheld a similar Tennessee law. On Tuesday, the appeals court said U.S. District Judge Jay Moody had erred when he permanently blocked Arkansas’s Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act in 2023, concluding that the ban discriminates against transgender youth and poses “immediate and irreparable harm.”

Writing for the appeals court, Judge Duane Benton — a George W. Bush appointee — stated that Moody’s legal conclusions conflicted with the Supreme Court’s precedent and that “the judgment is reversed and the case remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The SAFE Act, passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2021 over then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto, prohibits physicians from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender-affirming surgeries to individuals under 18.

The law was challenged by four families of transgender minors and two medical providers, who argued it violates constitutional protections. Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, called Tuesday’s ruling “a tragically unjust result for transgender Arkansans, their doctors, and their families.”

“The state had every opportunity and failed at every turn to prove that this law helps children; in fact, this is a dangerous law that harms children,” Dickson said, adding that the organization is evaluating its next steps.

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