Three states and three physicians sued the Trump administration Friday over an executive order meant to slash federal support for gender-affirming care for minors, calling the order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“The order is a cruel and baseless broadside against transgender youth, their families, and the doctors and medical institutions that provide them this critical care,” the complaint, filed Friday morning in the U.S. District Court for Western Washington, says. “It is also a blatant abuse of power.”
The lawsuit, one of two challenges to President Trump’s executive order, asks the court to block federal agencies from implementing its restrictions on funding for gender-affirming care for minors — which the order says includes 19-year-olds — through government insurance programs like Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare, the military’s health program.
Seven families with transgender children and two advocacy groups argued the order is unconstitutional earlier this week in a similar complaint. Both suits claim Trump’s executive order unlawfully withholds funds that Congress previously authorized.
Friday’s lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Washington state, Minnesota and Oregon alongside three unnamed doctors, argues the order also violates the 10th Amendment by attempting to regulate medical practices, a power typically left to the states.
“This order is part of a larger political effort to strip away civil rights from entire communities,” Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said Friday in a statement. “The president’s cruelty is on full display with this dehumanizing executive order, along with his disdain for the Constitution. His actions are harming Washington’s youth, parents, and health care providers.”
Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, say gender-affirming care for transgender adults and minors is medically necessary and can be lifesaving. They have broadly rejected efforts to politicize care or restrict or ban treatment.
The complaint states that the detrimental impact of Trump’s executive order on transgender youth “cannot be overstated.” It touches on the story of one young transgender girl who died by suicide in January after she pleaded with her parents to move to Canada from Washington state following Trump’s election in November.
The girl, whose name and age are not revealed, “was a bright and gentle soul,” according to the complaint. She loved playing music and “Magic: The Gathering,” and she was excited to learn Japanese.
“Her joy was clear with every new milestone in her transition,” the person’s parents wrote in the court filings. “She was so happy to get to the next step, to get closer to presenting in a way that was true to herself.”
Now, the parents wrote, they “fear for the many lives who depend on gender-affirming care and that what happened to their daughter does not happen to any other children.”
“Our children deserve so much better than to be targeted, intimidated, and denied medically necessary healthcare by the President of the United States and his billionaire cronies,” said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D). “Gender-affirming care is evidence based, provided by licensed and trained medical professionals, and provided with the consent of a young person’s parents or legal guardians.
“President Trump’s executive order is not only illegal, it’s mean-spirited and deeply hurtful, so I’m filing a lawsuit to end it,” Ellison added.
Oregon’s Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement that Trump’s order is “a clear example of federal overreach.”
“Banning funding involving gender-affirming care is an infringement on individual rights, and it denies people the dignity and healthcare they deserve,” he said.
All three states involved in Friday’s lawsuit have “shield laws” in place protecting access to gender-affirming care. The laws were passed in response to a deluge of Republican-led states moving to ban treatment beginning in 2021. Thirteen states and Washington, D.C., have adopted similar protective laws.
A growing number of hospitals in states across the country have said they will suspend gender-affirming care because of Trump’s order, which directs federal agencies to strip funding from medical institutions that provide transition-related care to minors.
The White House said that hospitals moving to downsize or eliminate their gender-affirming care programs show that the order is “having its intended effect.”
At least two state attorneys general, Letitia James of New York and Rob Bonta of California, have warned hospitals that denying care to transgender patients violates state laws against discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.
