Judge Limits Scope of Lawsuit Over North Dakota Gender Affirming Care Law

The Burleigh County Courthouse. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – A judge is limiting the scope of a lawsuit challenging North Dakota’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors after concluding three families don’t have standing to participate as plaintiffs.

Luis Casas, a North Dakota pediatric endocrinologist, will be the sole remaining plaintiff in the case, South Central Judicial District Judge Jackson Lofgren said during a pretrial conference Tuesday.

Lofgren found that Casas has standing to represent himself in the lawsuit as well as the interests of his current and future patients.

The law, signed by former Gov. Doug Burgum in 2023, makes it a crime for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming care to anyone under age 18. It includes an exemption for minors who had been receiving treatment before the ban took effect.

Casas and three North Dakota families with transgender children sued the state over the law in September 2023. In their complaint, the group argued the ban violates health care freedoms and discriminates against children with gender dysphoria by denying them treatment available to kids with other medical conditions. The plaintiffs also claimed that the law is unconstitutionally vague and leaves medical providers vulnerable to prosecution because it does not sufficiently explain when its exemptions apply.