On Friday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit against Southampton Community Healthcare, Inc., for providing gender transition interventions, such as puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, to minors without a comprehensive mental health assessment, as was required by state law before the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act went into effect following a massive legal win by his office last month.
This suit comes after Attorney General Bailey’s legal team obtained concessions in open court that providers did not even meet diluted medical standards before allowing children to undergo gender transition procedures.
“As long as I’m Attorney General, I will fight to ensure that Missouri is the safest state in the nation for children,” said Attorney General Bailey. “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.”
Attorney General Bailey’s lawsuit notes that during the hearing in defense of the SAFE Act, Southampton’s own witnesses “acknowledged in open court that providing these [gender transition] interventions without a comprehensive mental health assessment is contrary to the medical standard of care.” Southampton’s own witnesses, despite supporting gender transition interventions, agreed that no person should receive those interventions who has not undergone “a comprehensive psychological evaluation.”
General Bailey’s lawsuit notes that Southampton did not provide those comprehensive evaluations. Before gender transition interventions were banned for minors in Missouri, Southampton failed to adopt and consistently apply a policy of ensuring that each minor patient receive a comprehensive mental health assessment before undergoing such interventions.
His lawsuit asserts that Southampton violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act because,
- Providing gender transition interventions without first ensuring that each minor patient in Missouri receives a comprehensive mental health assessment is both unfair and deceptive under Missouri law.
- Providing gender transition interventions without first ensuring that each minor patient in Missouri receives a comprehensive mental health assessment is “unethical, oppressive, [and] unscrupulous” under Missouri regulations enacted pursuant to Missouri law.
- Providing gender transition interventions without first ensuring that each minor patient in Missouri receives a comprehensive mental health assessment “[p]resents a risk of, or causes, substantial injury to consumers” under Missouri regulations enacted pursuant to Missouri law.
Attorney General Bailey is seeking full restitution for victims who underwent gender transition procedures without a mental health assessment, a civil penalty of $1,000 for each violation, and an injunction to halt future such violations.
The counterclaim can be viewed here.