(The Daily Wire)—A Wyoming doctor who wrote an email to the Wyoming State Legislature where he expressed support for “Chloe’s Law,” — a law which prohibits gender reassignment surgeries and hormone therapies for minors — who was then was forced to resign from the Wyoming Board of Medicine by Governor Mark Gordon, has filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Dr. Eric Cubin was appointed to the Wyoming Board of Medicine in 2023. The Board oversees medical regulation, compliance, and discipline in the state.
“On February 21, 2024, Dr. Cubin emailed Sheila Bush, the Executive Director of WMS, to express his concerns about WMS’s position on Chloe’s Law and to request that WMS present views of physicians on both sides of the issue,” the brief for the appeal states. “Dr. Cubin and WMS leadership exchanged emails over the next several days, but WMS failed to address Dr. Cubin’s concerns to his satisfaction. Then, on February 28, 2024, Dr. Cubin sent all members of the Wyoming House of Representatives an email expressing his personal support for Chloe’s Law and his criticism of WMS’s position against it.”
Gordon then “forced Dr. Cubin to resign from the Board, claiming that his letter created the ‘appearance of bias’ and could give the impression that he was speaking on the Board’s behalf, —even though his email was sent from his personal account, made clear that he was writing on his own behalf as a Wyoming physician, and did not even mention the Board or his position on it,” Liberty Justice Center, which is representing Cubin, stated.
Gordon’s letter stated that he believed “Dr. Cubin’s ‘personal comments’ in his email to legislators regarding Chloe’s Law ‘could give doctors, who are licensed by the Board of Medicine, a reason to be concerned that [Dr. Cubin] might use [his] position to advocate for a particular position when considering matters that should be considered absent an agenda,’ and that ‘medical professionals should be confident that their licensure, which is their livelihood, will be handled professionally and clinically examined on merits alone,’” the brief stated. “Governor Gordon’s letter further stated that he was terminating Dr. Cubin ‘as I have done before, when a member of a board chooses to express personal beliefs in a way that can be construed as speaking for the body.’”
Chloe’s Law was signed into law by Gordon in April 2024, although he had reservations, saying, “I signed SF99 because I support the protections this bill includes for children, however it is my belief that the government is straying into the personal affairs of families. Our legislature needs to sort out its intentions with regard to parental rights. While it inserts governmental prerogative in some places, it affirms parental rights in others.”