Poe v. Drummond

In a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma, Lambda Legal, and the law firm Jenner & Block LLP, a group of families with transgender adolescents and a medical provider who supports trans youth assert SB 613 unjustly and unfairly targets them and gender-affirming health care in violation of their rights under Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. The lawsuit also alleges that the September 2022 decision to stop providing gender-affirming care to transgender adolescents at Oklahoma University hospitals to maintain access to COVID funding relief violated both the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

SB 613 bans all forms of gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender youth and threatens providers who violate the law with a felony conviction and discipline from their professional licensing boards.

In September 2022, Oklahoma state legislators threatened to withhold COVID relief funding from Oklahoma University hospitals if they did not end their program supporting transgender youth. In March 2023, the Oklahoma legislature censured Rep. Mauree Turner, the state’s only openly nonbinary lawmaker.

Update: On May 18, 2023, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office agreed not to enforce SB 613 pending resolution of the Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in their challenge to SB 613.