Author ORCID Identifier
Abstract
Some observers recently have wondered whether actions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) could federally preempt increasingly common state restrictions on gender-affirming care, particularly prohibitions on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in adolescent patients. In theory, such a legal strategy might sidestep the need to lodge increasingly unsuccessful challenges under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supremacy Clause offers little assistance, however, in attempting to get around these state laws. Indeed, even if the FDA eventually approved such uses for currently marketed drugs, implied preemption doctrine as currently configured probably would not do the trick, though securing a federal license for a brand-new pharmaceutical product labeled solely for use in transgender adolescents might just work to displace state prohibitions.
Treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently. -Kimberlé Crenshaw
Recommended Citation
Lars Noah, Preempting Red State Restrictions on the Use of FDA-Approved Drugs in Gender-Affirming Care?, 2024 ULR 833 (2024).
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Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Food and Drug Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Law and Gender Commons