Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said children must be protected, not used as political experiments, citing Georgia’s dozens of legal actions on women’s sports and medical procedures for minors while backing the administration’s effort to permanently address the issue.
The issue centers around federal funding for gender transition procedures for minors. Carr, along with attorneys general from 23 other states, sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to stop federal funding for these procedures. The letter responds to two proposed federal rules that would restrict coverage of such procedures under Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to a press release by Carr.
“Children are not social experiments, they are not science experiments, and they are not political theories… They’re children, and they deserve to be protected… We have continued to fight back here in Georgia – taking over 60 legal actions to save women’s sports, ban child mutilation, and prohibit taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries… Now, we’re proud to support the administration’s efforts to end this nonsense once and for all,” Carr said.
The letter sent by the attorneys general cites evidence from litigation concerning the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s “Standards of Care 8” guidelines. It notes that some recommendations were influenced by legal and political considerations; that treatment guidance changed over time; and that systematic reviews on safety and effectiveness of these procedures for minors were limited. The letter also mentions specific controversial recommendations in the SOC-8 guidelines. (source)
Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming joined Carr in sending the letter as part of a coordinated multistate effort to provide comments on federal rules regarding coverage of gender transition procedures for minors. (source)
Carr was appointed as Georgia’s attorney general by then-Governor Nathan Deal in 2016 and was re-elected in November 2022. Since taking office he has focused on issues such as human trafficking and gang activity including establishing Georgia’s first Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit and Gang Prosecution Unit. (source)
