(Read Lion)—A Wyoming doctor forced off the state’s medical board after supporting a ban on gender transition procedures is continuing to fight his way through the courts – filing a federal appeal last week.
Dr. Eric Cubin, a Wyoming radiologist, was reportedly forced to resign from the Wyoming Board of Medicine by Republican Gov. Mark Gordon after Cubin expressed his personal support for “Chloe’s Law,” a bill to restrict doctors from performing gender-altering procedures on minors.
“The governor retaliated against Dr. Cubin for exercising his First Amendment right to speak out on legislation,” Liberty Justice Center (LJC) president Jacob Huebert, who is representing Cubin, told the Lion in an interview. “There are some circumstances where the government can limit what its employees say, but this isn’t one of them.”
The controversy began when the Wyoming Medical Society, a voluntary physicians group that purports to represent doctors across the state, expressed opposition to “Chloe’s Law.” Cubin, a member of the society, wrote an email to state legislators expressing his personal support for the law and noting that the society’s position “did not represent the perspective of all Wyoming physicians,” LJC noted.
In that email, which was sent from Cubin’s personal account, Cubin expressed that the Wyoming Medical Society “has been essentially hijacked by the far left” and that they had “adopted and embraced ‘woke’ positions that are not congruent with the thoughts and opinions of the majority of their members.”
Chloe’s Law ultimately passed in the Legislature and was signed into law by Gordon in March 2024. Yet a month later, Gordon forced Cubin to resign from his position on the Wyoming Board of Medicine – which handles medical license issuing and renewing – citing his email to state legislators in which Cubin supported Chloe’s Law. Although the governor himself signed Chloe’s Law, he said Cubin’s comments could give the impression that Cubin was biased.
“Medical professionals should be confident that their licensure, which is their livelihood, will be handled professionally and clinically examined on merits alone,” Gordon wrote, adding that “even the appearance of bias” could erode confidence in the medical board’s impartiality.
After filing suit in August 2024, LJC filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to reinstate Cubin on the board, which was denied in federal district court, leading to last week’s appeal in the Tenth Circuit.
“Dr. Cubin was just speaking out on a matter of public concern, a piece of legislation that he supported, and there’s no justification for firing him for doing that,” Huebert told the Lion. “It didn’t cause any disruption to the board’s functioning, there’s no reason to think that it ever would disrupt the board’s functioning, and so it’s not justifiable.”
Huebert added that Cubin was acting in his own capacity and that “nothing” in his email to state legislators should have been construed to mean that he was speaking on behalf of the state board.
“He sent his email from his personal email account, he said he was doing it as a Wyoming physician, he never mentioned the State Board of Medicine or his position on the board,” Huebert said.
If the appeals court does not rule in Cubin’s favor, Huebert indicated that the Supreme Court “would be the next step” as the case “presents a very important issue.”
The governor’s office declined to comment when reached by The Lion, citing pending litigation.