Asa Hutchinson

Aug. 13 (UPI) — A federal appeals court has ruled that Arkansas may enforce its ban on minors receiving gender-affirming care, overturning a lower court’s decision that found the law unconstitutional.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued its ruling Tuesday, stating the lower court erred in June 2023 when it struck down Arkansas’ Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act for violating the First Amendment and both the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause.

It said the lower court’s ruling was incongruent with a recent Supreme Court decision that upheld Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban for minors.

“Because the district court rested its permanent injunction on incorrect conclusions of law, it abused its discretion,” the appeals court ruled.

Arkansas’ Republican attorney general, Tim Griffin, celebrated the ruling.

“I applaud the court’s decision recognizing that Arkansas has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological health of children and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from risky, experimental procedures with lifelong consequences,” he said in a statement.

Gender-affirming care includes a range of therapies, from psychological, behavioral and medical interventions with surgeries for minors being exceedingly rare. The medical practice has been endorsed by every medical association.

Despite the evidence and the support of the medical community, Republicans and conservatives, often with the use of misinformation, have been targeting gender-affirming care amid a larger push threatening the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Arkansas passed the SAVE Act in 2021, but then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed it that same year, calling the ban a “product of the cultural war in America” that would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. The GOP-majority legislature then overrode his veto, making Arkansas the first state to pass a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors in the United States.

Four transgender minors and their parents then challenged the law, saying it violated their rights, resulting in the 2023 ruling overturning the ban, which marked a victory in the fight for LGBTQ healthcare until Tuesday.

“This is a tragically unjust result for transgender Arkansans, their doctors and their families,” Holly Dickson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, said in a statement.

“As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want transgender Arkansans to know they are far from alone and we remain as determined as ever to secure their right to safety, dignity and equal access to the healthcare they need.”

The ruling comes as Republicans seeking to restrict transgender healthcare have gained a support in the White House with President Donald Trump who has implemented several federal policies that align with their efforts.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making it federal policy that there are only two genders, male and female, both of which were determined at “conception.” He has also banned transgender Americans from the military and has sought to bar transgender athletes from competing on teams and in competitions that align with their gender identity.

Twenty-six states and the territory of Puerto Rico have banned gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

May 29 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued several more pardons, including those for his political allies: former U.S. House member Michael Grimm of New York and ex-Connecticut Gov. John Rowland.

Trump has largely circumvented the process run through the Department of Justice. Trump’s new pardon attorney Ed Martin last week reviewed commutation applications for the president to consider, a source told CNN.

A pardon ends the legal consequences of a criminal conviction and a commutation reduces the sentence.

Grimm, a member of the U.S. House from 2011-2015, served seven months in prison after being convicted of tax evasion in 2014.

He attempted to win back his House seat in 2018 but lost in the Republican primary.

Grimm, 55, who worked for Newsmax from 2022-2024, was paralyzed in a fall from a horse during a polo competition last year.

After the State of the Union in 2014, Grimm threatened to break a reporter in half “like a boy” when questioned about his campaign finances. He also threatened to throw the reporter off a balcony at the Capitol.

Rowland, a Republican governor in Connecticut from 1996-2004, was convicted twice in federal criminal cases. He resigned as governor after the first offense of election fraud and obstruction of justice. Then, he was sentenced to a 30-month prison term in 2015 for his illegal involvement in two congressional campaigns.

Also pardoned was another Republican, Jeremy Hutchinson, a former Arkansas state senator, who was sentenced to 46 months in prison for accepting election bribes and tax fraud in 2014.

Hutchinson is the son of former Sen. Tim Hutchinson and nephew of former Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Imaad Zuberi, who donated $900,000 to Trump’s first inaugural committee and was also a donor on fundraising committees for Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, had his sentence commuted on Wednesday.

In 2021, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for falsifying records to conceal work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials and obstructing a federal investigation of the inaugural fund.

Trump also Wednesday commuted the sentences of eight others, a White House official said.

Larry Hoover, the co-founder of Chicago’s Gangster Disciples street gang, was serving six life prison sentences in the federal supermax facility in Florence, Colo., after a 1997 conviction. He ran a criminal enterprise from jail.

Hoover, who is now 74, had been seeking a commutation under the First Step Act, which Trump signed into law in 2018. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber denied Hoover’s request, calling him “one of the most notorious criminals in Illinois history.”

But he won’t get out of a prison yet because he is also serving a sentence of up to 200 years on Illinois state murder charges. Trump can’t give clemency to those convicted on state charges.

An entertainer and a former athlete were also pardoned.

Rapper Kentrell Gaulden, who goes by NBA YoungBoy, was convicted in a federal gun crimes case last year. He was released from prison and won’t need to serve probation.

Charles “Duke” Tanner, a former professional boxer, was sentenced to life in prison for drug conspiracy in 2006. Trump commuted his sentence during his first term.