A Kansas judge has cleared the way for transgender minors to resume gender-affirming care that lawmakers banned in 2025.
Douglas County District Court Judge Carl Folsom III issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of key provisions of the state law in a 117-page ruling on Friday.
The decision will allow physicians to administer puberty blockers and hormone therapy for teenagers experiencing gender dysphoria with the permission of their parents.
THE 2025 LAW also bans gender-affirming surgeries for people under 18. But because no Kansas clinics offer such surgeries for minors, that provision was not included in the motion to block enforcement of the statute while the civil lawsuit works its way through the courts.
“This is an enormous relief to our clients and families across the state of Kansas,” said Harper Seldin, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the state on behalf of two trans minors whose treatment was interrupted by the legislation.
“The medical care unjustly banned by this law serves as the foundation of young transgender people’s entire lives and helps give them the future all young people deserve,” Seldin continued. Any decision about this medical care should be between families and their doctors.”
IN HIS OWN statement, Attorney General Kris Kobach derided the injunction as “a stark example of judicial activism” and vowed to appeal the decision.
“The judge invented a new constitutional right out of whole cloth. Even though the Kansas Constitution says nothing about it, the judge created a new right of parents to obtain otherwise-illegal treatments for their children,” Kobach said.
The Attorney General’s office has argued in court that the law is intended to protect children from unsafe treatments and to uphold the integrity of the medical profession. Major U.S. medical organizations support access to gender-affirming care for minors.
Folsom’s ruling comes months after Republican lawmakers enacted another law over Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto, forcing transgender Kansans to replace any driver’s licenses and birth certificates with updated gender markers and restricting public restroom usage in government buildings based on sex assigned at birth.
IN MARCH, Douglas County District Court Judge James McCabria denied the ACLU’s motion for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked enforcement of that law.
The gender-affirming care ban lawsuit was filed last May, and Folsom’s decision to grant an injunction comes after a two-day evidentiary hearing in November, where plaintiffs shared their stories and the judge heard from both sides’ expert witnesses.
“This temporary injunction is not a final determination of any claim,” Folsom wrote. “But it is intended to prevent the plaintiffs from suffering irreparable injury during the pendency of this lawsuit while plaintiffs’ claims are being litigated.”
The plaintiffs are two transgender teens and their parents, who are all identified by pseudonyms in court filings. “Lily Loe” is a 14-year-old trans girl whose family lives in Lawrence, and “Ryan Roe” is a 16-year-old trans boy whose family lives in Overland Park.
According to their sworn testimony, the teens both knew from an early age that they did not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. After they and their parents consulted with medical professionals at the Gender Pathways Services Clinic that operates through Children’s Mercy Hospital, the teens were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and prescribed hormonal treatments.
“Being transgender is not a mental health condition to be treated or cured,” Folsom wrote. “But transgender people may experience gender dysphoria, the medical condition marked by clinically significant distress that can arise from the incongruence between a person’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.
