On March 2, Family Council sent a Freedom of Information Act Request to UAMS in Little Rock requesting the following:
- Any and all information (including educational materials in any medium) made available within the past five years to patients or their parents/guardians concerning treatment with a hormone, hormone suppressant, and/or pubertal blocker for the following conditions:
- Gender identity disorder
- Gender dysphoria
- Gender incongruence
- Any and all information (including copies of blank consent forms) used within the past five years for the purpose of obtaining a patient’s or parent/guardian’s informed consent to treatment with a hormone, hormone suppressant, and/or pubertal blocker for the same conditions lifted in 1. above.
The FOIA request is part of ongoing research regarding puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones used for gender-transition in Arkansas. Family Council has previously sent Freedom of Information Act Requests to UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
In response, UAMS sent Family Council more than 200 pages of documents.
Among other things, the documents include:
- Information from the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign regarding “Supporting and Caring for Transgender Children.”
- A 100-page document containing pro-LGBT literature from the organization PFLAG.
- Informed-consent information for transgender patients using testosterone or estrogen.
- Information on hormone replacement therapies in Little Rock.
In 2021 the Arkansas Legislature passed the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act.
The SAFE Act is an excellent law that protects children from sex-reassignment procedures, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones.
Researchers do not know the long term effects that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones can have on children.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has never approved puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the purpose of gender transition. Doctors are giving these hormones to kids off-label, in a manner the FDA never intended.
That is part of the reason many experts agree that giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children for the purpose of gender transition is experimental, at best.
UAMS operates a pro-transgender Gender Clinic that offers hormone replacement therapies and referrals for sex-change surgeries. However, many people know very little about how medical professionals utilize hormones and puberty blockers for sex-change procedures in Arkansas.
The ACLU and others filed a lawsuit against the SAFE Act last summer, before the law officially took effect, and a federal judge in Little Rock has temporarily blocked the state from enforcing it.
Several business interests and the Biden-Harris Administration also have joined the fight against Arkansas’ SAFE Act.
Arkansas’ Attorney General has appealed that order to the Eighth Circuit to let the state enforce the SAFE Act. A trial in the case is scheduled for October.
Download UAMS’s Full Response to Family Council FOIA Request Here.
