On July 2, 2026, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a law that will force transgender people in state prisons to stop receiving hormone therapy and gender-affirming care — immediately, with no tapering plan, and no exceptions.

This isn't a policy debate. It's a medical crisis being imposed on some of the most vulnerable people in the state.

Doctors are clear: abruptly withdrawing hormones can cause heart complications, bone density loss, metabolic dysfunction, cognitive decline, and severe psychological harm. For trans people who have had gender-affirming surgery and no longer have their original gonads, stopping hormone therapy isn't just harmful — it can be life-threatening. No ethical doctor would ever do this to a patient without a serious medical reason. Missouri's government just did it to hundreds of people by slipping a single sentence into a budget bill.

A federal court ruled in 2018 that denying gender-affirming care to trans inmates violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Missouri has been under that ruling ever since. This law defies it — knowingly. The bill's own sponsor said trans inmates don't deserve medical care because they've been convicted of crimes. But a prison sentence is the punishment. It is not a license for the government to impose a separate medical ordeal on top of it.

These are human beings who woke up on July 2nd and found their medication simply wasn't there. They can't speak up publicly, can't fundraise, can't leave the state. We can speak for them.

Sign this petition to demand Missouri stop enforcing this cruel and unconstitutional law and restore gender-affirming care to all trans inmates immediately.