Missouri's Attorney General Andrew Bailey won a huge victory that is having a domino effect across his state when he successfully defended legislation that would outlaw gender surgery and hormone treatment for minors looking to "transition" from one sex to another. 

The law stipulated that minors already receiving treatment could be grandfathered in and continue to take said treatments, but apparently, Washington University sees too many liability problems with this and has now announced they will no longer be providing treatments at all. 

"Washington University has ceased all prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children after a law that my office successfully defended in court went into effect two weeks ago," said Bailey in a celebratory post on X. 

BREAKING: Washington University has ceased all prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children after a law that my office successfully defended in court went into effect two weeks ago.
->https://t.co/rVKqdZBR8w

— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) September 11, 2023

"I'm proud to have shined a light on the lack of science supporting these procedures," he added. "I'm proud to be protecting children." 

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, while the University will no longer be administering the treatments themselves, they will be referring patients to other hospitals. Despite it being legal to continue administering treatments at the University for ongoing patients, the University's legal team spotted a loophole that could endanger the University to liability payments of $500,000 at a minimum: 

“We are disheartened to have to take this step. However, Missouri’s newly enacted law regarding transgender care has created a new legal claim for patients who received these medications as minors,” Washington University said.

Officials said the claim creates “unsustainable liability for health care professionals and makes it untenable for us to continue to provide comprehensive transgender care for minor patients without subjecting the university and our providers to an unacceptable level of liability.”

Regardless, the University says it will still "offer education and mental health services" and provide treatments for adults: 

The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital will continue to offer education and mental health services to transgender youths, which is still allowed under the law, the university said. Transgender adults will also still be able to receive medications from Washington University physicians.

The legislation to stop "gender-affirming" treatments for minors was prompted, in part, when a whistleblower named Jamie Reed, a former employee at the Pediatric Transgender Clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, came forward in February and exposed unsafe practices at the hospital. 

Some of these practices exposed by Reed included doctors continuing to prescribe medical transition even after parents revoked consent and a lack of mental health counseling despite a very clear mental degradation happening in minors after treatment, including suicide attempts. According to Reed, a girl who should have been placed on birth control was given cross-sex hormone treatment because she simply wanted to avoid getting pregnant. 

Reed also claimed that the hospital never tracked negative outcomes of their transition treatments because they wanted to be able to lie to patients about it. 

This story caused Senator Josh Hawley to open up an investigation into Washington University, sending a letter declaring it must "take steps to preserve all records, written and electronic, regarding gender-related treatments performed on minors since the opening of the Center."

"If even a fraction of the whistleblower’s new allegations is corroborated, the Center should be immediately shut down,” he added. 

What hospitals Washington University will now be sending patients to is not yet revealed, but it's likely that most will be out of state as other hospitals in Missouri will be hesitant to put themselves in the same legal danger as Washington U.