transgender

Court Upholds Arkansas Ban on Harmful ‘Transgender’ Procedures for Children

A federal appellate court upheld an Arkansas law protecting children from experimental and destructive “transgender” medical procedures.

Arkansas was the first state to pass a law shielding minors with sexual identity confusion from harmful puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries used to make them look more like the opposite sex, enacting the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act” (SAFE Act) in 2021.

After several court battles over the law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled in favor of SAFE Act on Tuesday, overturning a lower court’s decision blocking it from taking effect. 

The SAFE Act also prohibits public funds from going to organizations that provide these procedures for minors, bans insurance companies from providing coverage for them, and allows those harmed by these procedures to file lawsuits against providers.

The Arkansas Family Council, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, applauded the decision from the 8th Circuit. In a press release, Family Council President Jerry Cox stated:

“This is amazing news. The SAFE Act is a good law that protects children from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries. It has been blocked in court for the past four years.”

“Now the State of Arkansas can finally enforce this good law protecting children. That’s something to celebrate.”

Cox explained that other countries have found that such medical interventions don’t work and are harmful, saying, “Over the past four years, public health experts in the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Finland and other nations have found that science simply does not support performing these procedures on kids.”

The family policy council president added,

The SAFE Act is common sense legislation that protects children. That’s why the Arkansas Legislature voted overwhelmingly to pass it in 2021. That’s why more than half the states in America have passed similar laws since then. And that’s why the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar law in Tennessee earlier this year. Most people agree it is not right to perform [such] procedures on kids.

Shortly after the SAFE Act was passed, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the state to allow disfiguring, body-damaging transgender procedures to continue. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four families and two doctors.

In 2023, after an eight-day hearing, U.S. District Judge James “Jay” Moody struck down the Act. Judge Moody was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama.

Arkansas’ attorney general and the State Medical Board appealed the decision, and the 8th Circuit ruled in their favor, reversing Judge Moody’s decision and citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a similar law in Tennessee.

The 8th Circuit stated in its opinion:

Arkansas has a “compelling interest” in protecting the physical and psychological health of minors. …

By prohibiting healthcare professionals from referring “any” minors to “any healthcare professional for gender transition procedures,” the Act prohibits the procedures that the state deems unsafe for minors.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin commended the decision, stating in an X post, “I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures.”

Chemical and surgical mutilation of minors through transgender medical procedures are now banned in 25 states.

The Daily Citizen is thankful for the court’s decision to allow Arkansas’ sensible SAFE Act to take effect.

The case is Brandt v. Rutledge.

To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).

Related Articles and Resources:

ACLU Sues Arkansas Over Law Protecting Gender-Confused Children

Arkansas Can’t Protect Children from Harmful ‘Sex-Change’ Procedures, Court Rules

Arkansas Legislature Overrides Veto to Protect Gender-Confused Children from Experimental ‘Sex Change’ Procedures

Arkansas Passes Bill to Ban Puberty Blockers, Sex-Change Surgeries for Minors

Family Policy Alliance Launches ‘Help Not Harm’ Campaign to ‘Stop Transgender Experiments on Our Children!’

Federal Judge Strikes Down Arkansas Law Protecting Children From Destructive ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions

Judge Blocks Arkansas Law Prohibiting Experimental ‘Gender Transition’ Treatments on Minors

Justice Barrett Crucially Explains Why ‘Transgenderism’ is Not a Special Class

Resource for Parents: “Responding to the Transgender Issue”

Seventeen State Attorneys General Support Arkansas Law Banning Use of Puberty Blockers

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

US Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee Law Protecting Kids From Transgender Mutilation

Image from Shutterstock.

FTC Begins Investigating ‘Gender-Affirming’ Medical Community for Deception, False Advertising

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked citizens last week to share their experiences with so-called gender-affirming care.

The inquiry, which gives people 60 days to comment, will help FTC officials determine whether “gender-affirming” medical providers are illegally coercing families and children into purchasing dangerous and irreversible transgender medical interventions.  

Federal law prohibits businesses from using deception and fraud to sell their products. The FTC is responsible for investigating alleged violations of these consumer protections.

The agency believes doctors, counselors, surgeons and other healthcare providers may be using these tactics — like asking parents whether they “would rather have a dead son or a living daughter?” — to sell “gender-affirming” care.

In last week’s request for public input, the FTC outlined two investigatory goals:

  • To determine whether “gender-affirming care” has harmed consumers — particularly children.
  • To assess whether medical professionals are violating consumer protection laws by omitting the risks or lying about the benefits of “gender-affirming care.”

The public’s input will help the agency investigate:

  • How and when medical professionals recommend transgender medical interventions.
  • What prospective patients are told about the risks and benefits of transgender hormonal and surgical interventions.
  • What, if any, resources doctors and counselors give families to read up on transgender medical interventions.
  • What, if anything, medical professionals disclose about the scientific debate surrounding “gender-affirming care.”
  • What harms and side-effects children experience after undergoing “gender-affirming care,” and whether they knew about the risks ahead of time.

The FTC began exploring these questions last month in a workshop on the dangers of “gender-affirming care” for minors. The seven-hour event featured an impressive panel of speakers, including several detransitioners and their families.

The workshop revealed several troubling similarities in the ways medical professionals treat children with sexual identity confusion.

Each detransitioner began “gender-affirming care,” including opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgery, in their early teens; one received a double mastectomy just a week after she turned thirteen.

All experienced significant, preexisting psychological conditions like anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation before declaring themselves “transgender.” Their doctors assumed these comorbidities stemmed from their “transgenderism” and rarely offered treatments other than “gender-affirming care.”

All had trusted their doctors, but none now felt they’d been prepared for the devastation opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgeries wreaked on their bodies.

“They didn’t tell me that taking cross-sex hormones and undergoing major surgery at 14 years old could leave me with pelvic floor disfunction and urinary incontinence problems I now have to manage as a young adult,” Claire Abernathy testified in a shaking voice. “I’m only 20-years-old.”

The parents of detransitioners described feeling pressured to take their children to transgender clinics by doctors who falsely told them their children would die without “gender-affirming care.” They recalled feeling divided from their children and tiptoeing around doctors who would call child protective services if they weren’t suitably “affirming.”

One father remembered:

[My son’s psychiatrist] did not like that I did not take my son to a [transgender clinic]. I felt I had to walk on eggshells to avoid her recommending child services take my son away from our family. She had already suggested he be put in an inpatient facility.

For FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, the workshop painted a “troubling picture” of a vulnerable population sold an purported miracle cure that left them sick, injured and scarred.

He believes his commission is duty-bound to investigate, regardless of the political or cultural temperature.

“The FTC is the federal government’s guardian against false and deceptive health claims,” he addressed the workshop. “We have brought dozens of enforcement actions against false and misleading health claims, from shyster snake-oil salesmen to power pharmaceutical companies.”

He concluded,

Refusing to investigate these health claims, and the potential consumer harm to parents and children, merely because one political party supports “gender-affirming care” as a matter of ideology would be a political choice.

Americans have until September 26 to contribute to the FTC’s inquiry. If you or a loved one have been affected by “gender-affirming care,” please consider sharing your experience. Click here to learn how to participate.

Additional Articles and Resources

New Paper Details ‘Emerging and Accumulating’ Adverse Effects of ‘Gender Affirming’ Estrogen

FBI Investigates Three Major Hospitals for Mutilating Children

INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

New Research: 50-Fold Increase in ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in UK

Doctor Refuses to Publish Major Study Finding Puberty-Blocking Drugs Don’t Help Children

UPDATE: Evidence Reveals DOJ Oversight in Haim Case

England’s NHS Stops Dispensing Puberty Blockers for Children — Not Safe or Effective

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Citizen interviews Dr. Eithan Haim, the surgeon who exposed a secret transgender medical program at Texas Children’s Hospital

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

‘Transgender Means Many Different Things’ — And Nothing

Activist Group WPATH Influences Judgement in Case of Prisoner Receiving Trans Surgery

Suicidal or Stable? WPATH Activist’s Contradictory Evaluation Secures Felon Transgender Surgery

Radical and Dangerous Coed Olympic Scam is Over

Reflecting on his misgivings regarding slavery, Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever…”

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee expressed no such angst on Monday, but justice was nevertheless served in their decision to officially exclude sexually confused men from competing in women’s sports.

The overdue announcement was ultimately made in order to comply with President Trump’s executive order barring men from squaring off against women in women’s sports.

Titled, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the official presidential action (Executive Order 14201) declares:

It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.  It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.

In announcing the eligibility changes, the Olympic Committee said they were “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport,” and would work to “ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment.”

Sadly, the National Women’s Law Center, which claims to “fight for gender justice,” condemned the change.

“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” they wrote.

It seems that intense political hatred and bias have blinded many to the greater needs and concerns of female athletes. In fact, the Olympic Committee is finally doing what radical groups like the National Women’s Law Center have refused to do – defend and protect women athletes.

Radicals criticizing opposition to the “trans” circus will often point out just how few sexually confused athletes are actually competing overall. In the 2024 Olympics, there were two known such athletes on Team USA. Of course, that means there were two women robbed of their lifelong dream who were kept off the squad. This was a season they’ll never get back, stolen away from them due to someone else’s delusion, selfishness and a governing body that was derelict in their duty.

Reports of this week’s announcement continue to promulgate an utter lie. Scan the internet and you’ll see countless headlines about the USOC barring “trans women” from competition.

It’s a lie.

There is no such thing as “trans women” – there are only men and women (Genesis 1:27). The only thing the USOPC did was ban men from competing against women.

Following the announcement, a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee told ABC News, “This is a highly complex topic which has been approached by International Federations and National Olympic Committees in different ways depending on their sport and their national legislation and context.”

In actuality, it’s not complex at all. It’s commonsense. It’s only weak and confused male athletes who want to compete against female athletes. It took too long for the USOC to finally act – but at least they acted. The bullying of women athletes must stop.

Image from Getty.

Christian Bookstore Sues Colorado Over Radical ‘Trans’ Law

Last week, a Colorado Springs-based Christian bookstore, Born Again Used Books, filed a lawsuit against Colorado, claiming the state’s radical “trans” law violates their constitutional right to free speech and religious freedom.

This is the third suit filed against the so-called “Kelly Loving Act” since it was passed in May.

Born Again Used Books filed its complaint on July 16, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The case is Born Again Used Books v. Sullivan, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom.

Background

In May, Colorado lawmakers passed a law requiring places of public accommodation, like bookstores, to use people’s “preferred” pronouns and titles, or face discrimination claims.

As previously reported by the Daily Citizen, Focus on the Family spoke out against the law, noting it would threaten free speech by forcing schools and businesses to adopt gender-affirming policies that violate their beliefs.

Focus on the Family President, Jim Daly, spoke out against the bill online. Three analysts from the organization testified against the measure, and in support of parental rights and free speech, at the state capitol.

Complaint

The Christian bookstore argues Colorado’s new law violates their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The owners of Born Again Used Books will sell their books to anyone, but they do not wish to violate their Christian beliefs about human sexuality. The bookstore owners believe God created sex to be immutable and that it is biologically determined.

The bookstore insists it is their constitutional right to recognize biological reality and use titles and pronouns consistent with their faith beliefs when addressing staff and the public.

They want to formalize the policy for the public, explaining their religious beliefs. However, under Colorado’s law it is illegal.

In a press release, ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, director of the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives explained, “The government cannot force Americans to say things they do not believe. Compelled speech — particularly on matters of conscience and belief — is unconstitutional.”

Specific Violations

The complaint alleges Colorado’s law violates the constitutional rights of the bookstore owners in three ways.

First, plaintiffs argue it compels them to use “preferred” pronouns and titles, or stay silent, which conflicts with their free speech.

Second, the bookstore alleges the law substantially burdens its sincerely held religious beliefs by preventing it from expressing its religious view on human sexuality and gender.

Third, the complaint argues the law is overly vague and can be used by the state to discriminate against viewpoints it dislikes.

Lastly, plaintiffs allege it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored to a legitimate government interest.

The legal question before the court is whether a state can compel individuals or businesses to use language that affirms a view of gender identity they reject on moral or religious grounds.

ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton further explained the store’s position:

As the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, the government has no business trying to strip traditional views about sex and gender from the marketplace of ideas. Nor can the state compel Coloradans to speak in ways that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. Born Again Used Books shouldn’t have to continually choose between violating the law and speaking consistent with its Christian beliefs.

Request for Relief

The bookstore is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction to keep the state from enforcing the law against them, in addition to a declaratory judgment on the merits of the case finding the law, as applied to the bookstore, to be unconstitutional.

Impact

This case is not just about whether a bookstore is forced to use “preferred” pronouns and titles. Rather, it’s about whether Americans have the right to speak according to their conscience.

For many families concerned about government overreach into religious beliefs, especially in education, the outcome of this case could either affirm their rights or threaten a new era of state-mandated ideology.

Daily Citizen will continue covering this story.

Related Articles and Resources

Oppose Colorado’s Radical Abortion and ‘Transgender Rights’ Legislation

Focus on the Family Testifies Against Nightmare Bill, Colorado’s Radical ‘Trans’ Legislation Advances

Colorado Governor Signs Extreme Act: ‘Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals’

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

Image credit: ADF

Gavin Newsom and the Dead-End Politics of the Sexual Revolution

California Governor Gavin Newsom is languishing in a political purgatory of his own making.

An ambitious and astute politician, the governor embarked on a media tour this month to position himself as the reigning “moderate” in a leaderless and increasingly radical Democrat party.

But the governor is struggling to reconcile his new, “common sense” platform with the progressive ideology that propelled him to prominence. The disconnect is nowhere more evident than in his shifting position on “transgenderism.”

Newsom began distancing himself from his more radical colleagues in March, when he called publicly called forcing girls to compete against boys in sex-segregated sports “deeply unfair.”

His comments effectively launched his centrist rebrand. But they also landed him in hot water with some of his most powerful supporters.

“My party was [angry], the LGBTQ caucus [was angry],” Newsom told podcaster Shawn Ryan in an interview released this week.

“I’ll never forget that meeting with my friends, furious with me because I don’t think it’s fair [to allow boys to compete in girls sports].”

Of course the LGBT caucus was angry; Newsom, a self-described “champion” of LGBT rights, has been a staunch supporter of the caucus’ agenda for more than two decades. In 2004, as mayor of San Francisco, he issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples — before it was legal to do so.

In his interview with Ryan, Newsom called it one of his “proudest accomplishments.”

The governor reconciles his long-standing support of the LGBT agenda, particularly same-sex marriage, and his new position on sex-segregated sports by treating them as two entirely separate issues.

“When you get to issues [of boys participating in girls sports], that’s no longer about celebrating [someone’s] rights,” Newsom told Ryan. “It’s about denying [other] people theirs.”

But they aren’t two separate issues — far from it. The rise of “transgenderism” is the direct result of the legalization and normalization of same-sex relationships.

Gender ideology, including “transgenderism,” and same-sex marriage both stem from the ideology of the sexual revolution, which Dr. Jay Richards describes as the legal and social “fracturing” of marriage, sex and childbirth.

Richards, who directs the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Life, describes the sexual revolution as a train traveling toward the end of a track. In this metaphor, each stop represents an increasingly radical manifestation of the sexual revolution’s core ideology.

The legalization and normalization of same-sex marriage is one such stop. At this station, the politics of the sexual revolution effectively fractured marriage and the sexual binary. The government cosigned the lie that all family structures are equally good — for society, for the health of both spouses and for the rearing of children.

The rise of “transgenderism” is just one stop further down the track. Whereas the legalization of same-sex marriage diminished the significance of male and female in a marriage partnership, “transgenderism” erases the distinctions between male and female all together.

This ideology treats men and women as entirely interchangeable. It recognizes nothing significant or unique about the complimentary construction of male and female humans. Thus, boys can compete in girls sports and children can casually flood their bodies with opposite-sex hormones.

In short, Newsom cannot logically support same-sex marriage and simultaneously oppose the participation of boys in girls sports because “transgenderism” is the logical consequence of legalizing alternative family structures.

Perhaps the governor recognizes this logical bind, at least subconsciously. When Ryan asked him point-blank if he believes an 8-year-old should be allowed to “consent” to  irreversible transgender medical interventions, Newsom replied:

Yeah. Look, now that I have a nine-year-old, come on man, I get it. So, those [concerns about age] are legit.

That’s not an answer. He never gives one, other than to say he’s still learning about the issue.

It takes no more than half an hour of reading from unbiased sources to understand the devastating effects opposite-sex hormones and surgical mutilation wreak on children’s physical and mental development. Newsom’s reticence isn’t about knowledge — it’s about ideology.

If he admits kids can’t be born in the wrong body, the ideology he’s fought for for decades will collapse. He’ll lose his voter base while trying to reach Democrats who defected from the party during the 2024 presidential election.

Where does this leave Newsom? Trapped. The politics of the sexual revolution, which made him a powerful Democrat player in California, are keeping him from seizing an unprecedented opportunity to ascend to party leadership on a national scale.  

He can’t convincingly accept the moderate policy positions his colleagues have rejected after years of supporting an ideology that can only become more radical.

Additional Articles and Resources

Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage Harms Children and Society

‘Mass Exodus’: Dr. Jay Richards on the Demise of Gender Ideology and What It Means for the Pro-Life Movement

Here’s What Happens When Good People Don’t Connect Gay and Trans Ideology

Sorry ‘Gays Against Groomers,’ But Gay Activists Helped Start This Transgender Fire

Sorry ‘Gays Against Groomers,’ But Gay Activists Helped Start This Transgender Fire — Part Two

The Two-Parent Privilege: Understanding Contemporary Family Formation

Different Family Forms Lead to Prison or College for Young Men

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

Feds Sue California Department of Education Interscholastic Federation for ‘Illegal Sex Discrimination’

New Paper Details ‘Emerging and Accumulating’ Adverse Effects of ‘Gender Affirming’ Estrogen

INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

Doctor Refuses to Publish Major Study Finding Puberty-Blocking Drugs Don’t Help Children

England’s NHS Stops Dispensing Puberty Blockers for Children — Not Safe or Effective