Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is accusing a St. Louis-based healthcare provider of violating state consumer protection law by giving puberty blockers to minors without a comprehensive mental health assessment.
Mr. Bailey filed the counter lawsuit Sept. 22 against Southampton Community Healthcare, a provider that unsuccessfully challenged the Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act. The new law, which took effect Aug. 28, prohibits providers from performing gender transition surgeries and prescribing drugs for gender-affirming care to minors. There are exceptions for minors who were already receiving such treatment before Aug. 28.
Mr. Bailey's lawsuit alleges that Southampton provided gender transition interventions, such as puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, to minors without a comprehensive mental health assessment, as was required by the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act law before the SAFE Act took effect last month.
The lawsuit notes that at a preliminary injunction hearing in August, Southampton's witnesses "acknowledged in open court that providing these interventions without a comprehensive mental health assessment is contrary to the medical standard of care."
"As long as I'm attorney general, I will fight to ensure that Missouri is the safest state in the nation for children," the attorney general said in a news release. "These providers failed Missouri's children when they rejected even a diluted medical standard and subjected them to irreversible procedures. My office is not standing for it."
The ACLU of Missouri, which represented Southampton in challenging the new state restrictions, shared a joint statement with Becker's that it issued with Lambda Legal about the counter lawsuit.
"Earlier this year, the Attorney General tried and failed to use Missouri's consumer protection laws to go after gender-affirming medical care after Missouri courts enjoined and he later withdrew his so-called emergency rule," the statement reads.
"Now, Andrew Bailey is shamelessly attempting to revive that failed effort to distort consumer protection laws into a vehicle for the government to interfere with Missourians' access to healthcare and to dictate the type of treatment medical providers can offer.
"Bailey's actions are about nothing more than erasing transness from Missouri while he allows the top causes of child mortality to run rampant throughout the state. We will fight this desperate overreach."
Mr. Bailey's counter lawsuit seeks a civil penalty of $1,000 for each alleged violation of the MMPA and an injunction prohibiting such violations in the future.