A group of states told a federal appeals court that governments can lawfully refuse to pay for gender-affirming care because the treatments are experimental and not widely accepted.
Lower court decisions requiring North Carolina and West Virginia programs to remove barriers to coverage for gender dysphoria treatments were wrong, the Missouri-led group of 21 states said in two identical briefs filed in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Thursday.
States have the authority to make policy decisions in areas of scientific uncertainty, and decisions taking away that power are undemocratic, they said.
“Taken together, the decisions wrongly ...