Missouri enacts ban on state-funded gender transition care for transgender prisoners

Missouri has put a new restriction in place that will stop state money from being used for gender transition-related medical care in prisons, a change that affects incarcerated transgender people who are already receiving treatment as well as those who wanted to start it while in custody.

HB 2009 was signed into law on 30 June by Governor Mike Kehoe. The measure prohibits state funds from covering hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries intended for gender transition.

The new law marks another shift in Missouri’s approach to prison healthcare for transgender people. In 2018, a federal court ruling in Hicklin v. Precythe found that a blanket denial of hormone therapy violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and required individualized medical care in some cases.

That ruling did not apply to gender-affirming surgeries, which Missouri later limited through separate legislation in 2023.

According to reporting by Transitics via Substack, the latest provision was added to a broader corrections funding bill and sponsored by state Rep. Dirk Deaton.

During House debate in March, Deaton argued that lawmakers should decide how taxpayer money is spent on healthcare for incarcerated people. He said:

“Because recall…these are people that have been adjudicated of a crime. They’ve been convicted of a crime. They have been sentenced to prison. They are incarcerated on the taxpayer’s dime, for their room and board and also for their healthcare – paid 100% by the taxpayer. And what is appropriate healthcare under those circumstances, that’s what this speaks to,”

With the law now in force, Missouri’s Department of Corrections must end state-funded gender transition-related treatment inside prisons.

The policy is part of a wider national fight over transgender healthcare in correctional settings, where access to hormones and surgeries has repeatedly been challenged in courts and legislatures. For trans prisoners, such restrictions can directly affect continuity of care while incarcerated.

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