A transgender 9-year-old is suing North Carolina for access to gender-affirming medical care

A 9-year-old transgender boy is suing North Carolina, claiming a new state law that bans many types of medical care for transgender youth is unconstitutional.

Joining the youth and his parents in the lawsuit are a local doctor and several LGBTQ rights groups. The lead plaintiff is a 9-year-old from Durham who identifies as a boy but will be blocked from receiving medical care to help transition genders for nearly another decade, unless the law is struck down in court. The lawsuit calls him Victor Voe, a pseudonym used for safety and privacy reasons.

"Victor is transgender," the lawsuit says. "He knew from a very young age that his gender identity did not match his sex assigned at birth, and he generally lives as the boy he is in every aspect of life. However, with his puberty approaching, Victor will soon need medical care that is prohibited by the Health Care Ban."

State leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services and the N.C. Medical Board were named as defendants in the lawsuit, since they're tasked with enforcing the new rules. Both declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in federal court.

The law, which passed earlier this year as House Bill 808, bans medical treatments such as puberty blockers, surgery and other gender-affirming care for transgender people until they're at least 18 years old.

"The whole point of this is to protect our most vulnerable population from these atrocities," Rep. Ken Fontenot, R-Wilson, said when the House passed the bill in June.

It passed mostly along party lines at the state legislature, with all Republicans in favor and nearly all Democrats opposed. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed it, but the republican-controlled legislature overrode his veto in August.

GOP leaders faced national pressure to repeal a 2016 law targeting transgender people and their use of public bathrooms. But this year, no such backlash has occurred as numerous Republican-led states, including North Carolina, have all passed a bevvy of laws that advocates criticize as demonizing transgender people.

"The same legislators who cried 'parents rights' on certain issues are saying that on other issues, parents can’t be trusted to make decisions about what is right for their own children and families," said Brian Bond, who leads the national gay rights PFLAG. "It certainly makes one wonder if perhaps these legislators aren’t truly worried about the actual health and well-being of trans kids in North Carolina."

The NC Values Coalition, a Christian group that supported HB 808 and other bills targeting transgender issues this legislative session, criticized Wednesday's lawsuit in a press release that referred to transgender people as being confused, saying they shouldn't be allowed, before they're adults, to undergo medical treatment to transition genders. The group's executive director, Tami Fitzgerald, said the lawsuit "constitutes an attack on the people of North Carolina who have passed a law protecting children from mutilation of their bodies and a lifetime of medical and mental problems."

NC doctor expresses concern about 'politicians in the exam room'

GOP legislators have previously defended the transgender medical care ban by citing examples of people who transitioned genders but regretted their decision.

Asked about that claim Wednesday a lawyer for the LGBTQ advocates, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, acknowledged that there are people who later regret transitioning. But it's an incredibly small number of people, he said.

Advocates for transgender medical care have pointed instead to the large number of transgender youth who commit or attempt suicide, saying medical care could give them hope. Rep. John Autry, D-Mecklenburg, has a transgender granddaughter. He repeatedly invoked her to his Republican colleagues this year, begging them not to go forward with the changes.

"Would she be alive at 18 had she been denied her care?" he asked fellow lawmakers to consider, during one debate in June.

Dr. Riley Smith, a Raleigh native who now works as a family medical doctor at UNC, is one of those suing to overturn the law. He said that unlike any of the state's lawmakers, he has extensive medical training in this topic. He believes gender-affirming care for children is safe, he said, and shouldn't be banned.

"We do not need politicians in the exam room with us," Smith said.

Among the others suing is a national LGBTQ medical advocacy group called GLMA whose leader, Alex Sheldon, is from North Carolina.

"As a nonbinary North Carolinian myself, this legislation strikes me at my core," they said.

Other North Carolina laws on transgender issues

Many transgender youth, and parents of transgender kids, spoke at public hearings earlier this year urging Republican leaders not to move forward with this law, or with two other laws that restricted transgender rights.

HB 574 bans transgender girls from playing women's sports in middle school, high school and college.

And SB 49 requires teachers to "out" transgender students to their parents in certain situations, bans elementary schools from using any books that discuss LGBTQ issues, and streamlines the process for parents to try banning books or other instructional material at all grade levels.

Neither of those laws faces a lawsuit yet, although advocates are monitoring their effect as the new school year gets into gear.

"These loving parents have seen their right to make private medical decisions with and for their children stripped away, due to bigotry," Kendra Johnson, head of the gay rights group Equality NC, said Wednesday. "All while classrooms have been made less safe for LGBTQ+ families, and trans youth have been banned from sports.