- A North Dakota judge has upheld the state's ban on transgender medical procedures for minors, ruling the law is constitutional.
- The judge found that minors lack the capacity to understand the lifelong consequences of these irreversible interventions.
- The law makes performing surgeries on minors a felony and prescribing hormones or puberty blockers a misdemeanor.
- The ruling cited evidence that these procedures can cause sterility and worsen mental health outcomes rather than improve them.
- The decision reinforces the state's goal of protecting children from permanent harm.
In a significant victory for child welfare and medical ethics, a North Dakota district judge has upheld the state's ban on transgender medical procedures for minors, recognizing that children lack the capacity to understand the lifelong consequences of these irreversible interventions.
Judge Jackson Lofgren's ruling reinforces North Dakota's law protecting children from permanent sterilization and psychological harm disguised as healthcare. The decision comes as growing evidence reveals these procedures fail to resolve underlying mental health issues while causing permanent damage to young bodies.
Judge Lofgren determined that the law does not violate the state constitution, finding no evidence of "invidious discriminatory purpose" by legislators. The law properly discriminates based on age and medical purpose rather than sex, acknowledging that minors require special protections when making life-altering decisions.
"The evidence presented at trial establishes there is a legitimate concern regarding the capacity of minors to understand and appreciate the long-term consequences of the practices prohibited by the Health Care Law," Judge Lofgren wrote in his decision.
Irreversible damage and mental health risks
The North Dakota law, effective since April 2023, makes performing transgender surgeries on minors a felony and prescribing hormones or puberty blockers to facilitate gender transitions a misdemeanor in the state. These interventions carry severe permanent consequences, including sterility, impaired brain development, and lifelong medical dependency. Recent research confirms that these procedures actually worsen mental health outcomes rather than improving them.
A study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that transgender individuals who underwent surgery faced "significantly higher" rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and substance-use disorders compared to those who did not. Males who underwent surgery had depression rates of 25% compared to 11.5% among non-surgical males. Anxiety rates among that surgical group reached 12.8% compared to just 2.6% in non-surgical males. These findings directly contradict claims by proponents that these procedures are needed to resolve psychological distress.
Protecting vulnerable children
Republican state Representative Bill Tveit, who introduced the legislation, expressed satisfaction with the ruling. "It's a law that needs to be there. We need to protect our youth, and that's what the whole goal of this thing was from the beginning," Tveit said. The law allows minors who were already receiving transgender treatments prior to its enactment to continue them, even though such surgeries were never available in the state.
Medical experts are increasingly questioning the wisdom of performing irreversible procedures on minors. Manhattan-based psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert noted that surgery alone doesn't eliminate the complex psychological burdens that stem from societal stigma and personal struggles with identity. Florida neurosurgeon Dr. Brett Osborn emphasized that surgery is no guarantee of happiness, stating that "we're talking about irreversible changes that demand lifelong management."
The evidence clearly demonstrates that children lack the maturity to consent to permanent body modification. These procedures sterilize young people, destroy healthy tissue, and create lifelong patients without resolving the underlying psychological distress. North Dakota joins at least 27 states that have enacted similar protections for minors from these predatory practices, recognizing that true compassion means protecting children from irreversible harm until they reach adulthood and can make fully informed decisions.
Sources for this article include:
Please contact us for more information.