Attorney General Alan Wilson supports Trump Executive Order in Court to protect teens and children from radical sex-change procedures

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined friend-of-the-court briefs today asking two federal appeals courts to remove an injunction that’s blocking an Executive Order prohibiting the use of federal money to pay for pediatric sex-change procedures and treatments.

“We need to protect our teenagers and children from radical surgeries and hormones that are unproven, unsafe, and often irreversible,” Attorney General Wilson said. “President Trump’s Executive Order is a roadblock to child mutilation, so we’re hopeful the courts will allow it to take effect.”

Attorney General Wilson, along with the attorneys general of 25 other states, filed amicus briefs today with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, appealing the preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, which temporarily blocked the Executive Order.

President Trump issued an Executive Order last January called “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which says the U.S. will not fund or support “the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

The attorneys general argue that, in blocking President Trump’s Executive Order, the district court relied on guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), but that group lacks scientific integrity.

Court-ordered discovery found that WPATH wrote its Standards of Care even after it “found little to no evidence about children and adolescents.” The brief also argues that WPATH made “changes in a clinical guideline recommending irreversible sex-change procedures for kids based purely on political considerations.”

Joining Attorney General Wilson in the amicus brief are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

You can read the briefs here and here.