‘Protecting the children’: Circuit court upholds state’s minimum age law for gender medicalization of minors
August 14, 2025
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld an Arkansas state law prohibiting medical professionals from performing mutilating sex-change procedures on minors.
The Christian Post reports that the circuit court reversed a lower court ruling when it ruled on Tuesday to uphold the Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act, or Act 626. The case has been remanded for further proceedings.
In the majority opinion, Circuit Judge Duane Benton wrote, “the Act does not discriminate on the basis of sex” and that the law “regulates a class of procedures, not people.”
Benton continued, “The Act is rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting the well-being of minors. It does not violate this Nation’s historical concept of ordered liberty for the people of Arkansas, through their legislature, to prohibit physicians from providing gender transition procedures for minors.”
The sponsor of Act 626, State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, celebrated the appeals court decision in a statement that read: “I am so grateful for the members of the Arkansas Legislature who stood up for children and families. No child can possibly consent to chemical or surgical castration under the age of 18, or possibly understand the long-term and serious health implications that accompany these experimental procedures.”
Arkansas became the first state to ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries that mutilate sex organs on gender dysphoric youth in April 2021 when lawmakers passed the SAFE Act, overriding a veto from then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
According to the Christian Post, the ACLU filed suit in May of 2021 on behalf of several minors and their families and a lower court judge sided with the plaintiffs and blocked the law while litigation continued.
That lower court decision was upheld in 2022 by a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit.
Photo: top, Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images