Amicus brief for Georgia medical providers on hormone therapy in state prisons

Georgia Senate Bill 185 prohibits all hormone therapy for incarcerated adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria, without regard to any individual patient’s medical history, current treatment or clinical needs. Incarcerated people challenged the law in federal court, and the State appealed the district court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Together with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the firm filed a brief on behalf of five Georgia medical providers who treat transgender and gender-diverse adults. The brief speaks from clinical experience. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a serious medical condition by every major American medical organization, and the medications at issue, estrogen, testosterone and spironolactone, are commonly prescribed, well studied and inexpensive. The standard of care calls for an individualized assessment by a medical provider and, where appropriate, hormone therapy.

The brief’s central point is that patients with gender dysphoria are not interchangeable. Some have been on hormone therapy for decades; some have had procedures that make continued treatment medically essential. A statute that treats all of them identically is not a medical policy, and for a decade before S.B. 185 the Georgia Department of Corrections itself classified gender dysphoria as a serious medical need and authorized hormone therapy when its own medical directors found it necessary. The Eighth Amendment, the brief argues, does not allow the legislature to override that judgment by fiat, and the human cost of doing so is not theoretical.

The case is pending.