A new report “strongly refutes” the scientific backing of measures against gender-affirming care introduced in Alabama and Texas, claiming authorities in both cases omitted critical evidence that demonstrates the benefits of interventions like puberty blockers and hormone therapies in treating gender dysphoria in transgender and nonbinary youth.

Officials in Alabama and Texas have “exaggerated potential harms” of gender-affirming care and intentionally painted “a warped picture of the scientific evidence” that is available, a team of seven medical and legal experts at Yale University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSMC) wrote in a recent report.

An Alabama law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey (R) late last month and went into effect on Sunday. Under the law, it is now a felony — punishable by up to a decade in prison — to provide or recommend puberty blockers, hormone therapies or other gender-affirming interventions to patients younger than 19 years old.

“We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life,” Ivey wrote last month in a signing statement. “I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl.”