JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — At least one top Missouri Republican isn't defending Attorney General Andrew Bailey's rules on transgender medical care, which advocates say would make Missouri the first state to restrict treatments for adults.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said in an interview he disagrees with Bailey's regulation even though he doesn't support hormone therapy and gender surgeries for children and adults.
Ashcroft said adults should be able to make their own decisions and predicted the Republican attorney general's regulation won't actually take effect.
"I wouldn’t want to be the attorney that was defending it," Ashcroft, an attorney and engineer elected secretary of state in 2016, told the Post-Dispatch.
"If you’re an adult, you have the capacity to make your own decisions," Ashcroft said. "It’s a decision I would disagree with, but I don’t believe it’s the role of government to forbid it."
He said the government had a responsibility to protect children who are too young to give consent, and supports legislation restricting gender-related care for children. But Ashcroft said he wasn't confident the attorney general had the authority to limit such care himself.
Advocates for the LGBTQ community have said Bailey's regulation, which was issued last week and requires three years of documented gender dysphoria and 15 hours of therapy over 18 months before obtaining treatment, will erect barriers to obtaining care.
The rule is set to take effect April 27.
Planned Parenthood this week hosted a pop-up clinic for patients seeking care before the regulation starts. The group has said Bailey's rule is an attempt to effectively bar gender-affirming care in Missouri.
Bailey has based the authority for the regulation on the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, a consumer protection law the attorney general enforces.
State government can issue regulations to "fill gaps" in current laws when the laws aren't clear, Ashcroft said, but it's the Legislature's job to create new laws.
"If you are adding requirements that are not existent in the law, it seems to me that you are legislating," he said.
"There will be litigation and the courts will decide and I’m sure that the attorney general will have a reason why he believes it’s appropriate," Ashcroft said. "I think it’s a tough sell."
Ashcroft is running against Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe for the Republican nomination for governor.
Kehoe, approached in the Capitol on Wednesday, declined to comment on Bailey's regulation.
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