A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Oklahoma’s law banning sex change surgeries and hormone treatments for minors, delivering a significant legal victory to advocates of parental rights and child protection. The ruling affirms the state’s authority to restrict medical interventions on minors amid ongoing debate over the safety and ethics of gender transition procedures.
Senate Bill 613, signed into law in 2023, criminalizes the provision of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for the purpose of gender transition in individuals under 18. The law was challenged by five families of gender-confused children and a physician, who claimed it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.
Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Joel M. Carson, a Trump appointee, rejected those claims. Citing the Supreme Court’s June decision in United States v. Skrmetti—which upheld a similar law in Tennessee—Carson ruled that Oklahoma’s law is legally sound and “functionally indistinguishable” from the Tennessee statute. The court found the state has a rational basis for regulating gender transition procedures to protect minors’ physical and psychological well-being.
“We recognize the importance of this issue to all involved,” Carson wrote. “But this remains a novel issue with disagreement on how to assure children’s health and welfare.” He added that the court would not overturn the state legislature’s judgment in the face of medical disagreement.
The ruling upholds a lower court’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction and blocks efforts to pause the law while litigation continues. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond praised the decision as a victory for children and families. “For years, radical left activists pushed the lie of ‘gender transition’ procedures for minors. The truth is much simpler: there is no such thing,” Drummond said.
Legal advocates for the plaintiffs, including the ACLU and Lambda Legal, called the decision “devastating” and vowed to continue fighting.
The ruling sets a strong precedent for other states defending similar laws and reinforces the growing judicial consensus supporting state authority over controversial medical practices involving children.
