Memorial Day provides an opportunity to remember those who’ve made the greatest sacrifice so that we might enjoy the freedom our country guarantees. Yet conservative officials on multiple fronts are attacking some of the basic rights of marginalized communities.

In Missouri, a state investigation of the Washington University Transgender Center in St. Louis has been expanded to include therapists and social workers across the state who work with minors seeking gender-affirming care.

Documents made public as part of various lawsuits show that Attorney General Andrew Bailey has obtained unredacted and loosely redacted records of transgender children, including a list of patients who received care at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the Missouri Independent reports.

Bailey also wants unfettered access to the university’s digital medical records system, patient privacy be damned.

The attorney general’s use of private medical records, and the targeting of therapists and counselors, has interrupted the health care of LGBTQ+ Missourians and has families worrying about their children’s privacy, advocates say.

“The attorney general has created a hostile environment for medical providers where they are afraid to stay and practice medicine,” said Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director for the Missouri LGBTQ+ advocacy organization PROMO.

Bailey’s investigation was launched based on an affidavit from Washington University whistleblower Jamie Reed. The attorney general is using the affidavit to question other gender-affirming-care providers such as Planned Parenthood, which Bailey has said he hopes to “eradicate.”

Becky Hormuth and her 17-year-old son Levi, who was a patient at the Transgender Center, have been hearing about the scope of Bailey’s investigation for months. They learned the attorney general’s office has been looking into Levi’s psychologist’s records and heard other providers were interviewed about their support for gender-affirming care.

Levi labeled the attorney general’s work a “complete government overreach.”

Bailey’s creation of a tip line to report gender-affirming care, and his emergency rule to limit access to certain procedures and prescriptions, has Hormuth preparing to move out of state.

“It is very invasive, what he’s doing,” Hormuth told the Independent. “The state has already basically disrupted our lives. They’ve disrupted our families, our children’s lives with the legislation that has passed. Then for him to continue going on is even more invasive and damaging.”

Taking it to the streets, which are still open to the transgender community for now. (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

Whether states can legally ban gender-affirming care for minors is at the heart of a federal court case in Alabama, where a law approved in 2022 prohibits such treatments for transgender youth under age 19.

The Alabama Reflector reports that doctors who prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to younger transgender patients could be charged with a felony that’s punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

When it went into effect two years ago, a federal judge placed an injunction on enforcing the law, but an appellate panel removed that order. The families who have sued the state want the entire 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear arguments.

Whether that happens could depend on how similar lawsuits in other states play out. Discussion during a three-and-a-half hour hearing Thursday involved the merits of Alabama moving forward with its case while waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court takes up comparable cases in Kentucky and Tennessee.

As of this month, more than 117,000 transgender youth ages 13-17 live in the 25 states that have prohibited gender-affirming care for minors, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute.

Louisiana is one of those states, and lawmakers there are on board with a measure that would restrict discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools.

The bill from Republican Dodie Horton goes farther than Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, according to the Louisiana Illuminator. For starters, it would also block discussion of heterosexuality and cisgender identity, covering anyone who goes by the sex they were assigned at birth.

Horton’s proposal is much broader and would apply to K-12 grades, whereas Florida’s law applies only to early-grade students. It also prohibits “covering the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity” during any extracurricular and athletics events, meaning it could potentially hinder student chapters of the Gay-Straight Alliance and other LGBTQ+ student organizations.

A separate anti-LGBTQ+ proposal is slated to be discussed by the Louisiana Senate next week. It would prohibit the use of transgender and nonbinary youth’s chosen names and pronouns in public K-12 schools without parental permission. Even then, a teacher could still refuse the preferences of students and their parents on religious grounds.These colors don’t run or clash. (Getty Images)