Arkansas’s Attorney General is Looking Into Businesses That Offer Gender-affirming Care to Kids

The state’s review of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital has grown to include social workers and therapists who may work with minors who want to get care that affirms their gender.

Andrew Bailey, the attorney general of Missouri, wants to see medical records of patients who got care at the hospital that have been heavily or partially redacted. There are a lot of investigations going on right now into the center, including one by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley.

The move made people in the state’s trans and healthcare groups worry about how transgender youth will be able to get gender-affirming care in the future, according to the Missouri Independent.

An LGBTQ+ support group in the state, PROMO, led by Katy Erker-Lynch, said, “The attorney general has made the workplace hostile for medical providers; they are afraid to stay and practice medicine.”

As part of the investigation, Bailey is looking over papers at the Missouri Division of Professional Registration, which is in charge of medical licenses in the state. He had already gone after Planned Parenthood Great Plains and the Kansas City Hospital Children’s Mercy.

Bailey is said to have talked to 57 health care workers as part of the probe.

There was an investigation going on, and licensed clinical social worker Kelly Storck talked to top investigator Nick McBroom.

Storck brought an attorney to the meeting with her, and McBroom confronted her. She had a file of letters she had written to Washington University Transgender Care in support of patients who were looking for gender-affirming care at the hospital. A close look at some of the letters revealed that many of them had lines highlighted in green.

McBroom asked Storck to write down how she came up with the gender-affirming suggestions, but she refused. After that, the case was closed, but Storck still has worries and questions about the investigation.

As Storck told the Independent, “I still have a lot of doubts about who started it and who was in my documents.”

The Center earlier gave over a spreadsheet with information about patients wanting gender-affirming care, such as their visits, medications, and other private details.

The mother of a 17-year-old trans boy who got care at the Center, named Levi, called the investigation “invasive” and said it was making their lives more difficult than they needed to be.

Becky Hormuth told the Independent, “The state has already pretty much messed up our lives.” “The laws that were passed have made things hard for our families and our children.” For him to keep going on like that is even more harmful and intrusive.

Last year, Missouri banned gender-affirming care for minors. This year, Bailey made an emergency rule that banned the same kind of care for trans people as well. For the policy, he wrote that these treatments “lack solid evidentiary support” and “pose very serious side effects.” When politicians in the state acted, he took back the rule. The ban became law in June when Republican Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri signed it into law. A judge let it go into effect even though it was quickly contested in court.