Officials in 16 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit Friday to block the Trump administration\u2019s investigations into hospitals and doctors who provide transition-related care to minors.<\/p>\n
The complaint<\/a>, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues that the administration, by threatening to prosecute providers, is trying to institute a national ban on puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender minors even though Congress has enacted no such federal ban.<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government is running a cruel and targeted harassment campaign against providers who offer lawful, lifesaving care to children,\u201d New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the coalition of states in the suit, said in a statement. \u201cThis administration is ruthlessly targeting young people who already face immense barriers just to be seen and heard, and are putting countless lives at risk in the process. In New York and nationwide, we will never stop fighting for the dignity, safety, and basic rights of the transgender community.\u201d<\/p>\n More than half of states have laws that restrict or completely ban transition care for minors<\/a>. Care is legal in all of the states that joined Friday\u2019s complaint. They are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai\u2019i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Within days of his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to restrict such care nationwide<\/a> for anyone under 19 years old. Among its provisions, the order sought to bar federal funding from going to medical schools and hospitals that provide such care. As a result of the order, several hospitals announced they were pausing transition care for people under 19. Multiple judges blocked that part of the order<\/a>, and many hospitals resumed care. <\/p>\n Despite the injunction, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo in April<\/a> that said the Justice Department would use a variety of existing laws to investigate providers of gender-affirming care for minors. According to Friday\u2019s complaint, the DOJ has issued guidance that \u201cthreatens baseless civil and criminal prosecution\u201d of providers, and, just last month, issued more than 20 subpoenas to providers<\/a> of such care across the country demanding that they give the federal government private patient information. <\/p>\n The lawsuit, which names Trump, Bondi and the DOJ as defendants, challenges Trump\u2019s executive order seeking to restrict access to transition care for minors, Bondi\u2019s April memo and another June memo<\/a> from Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate that directed the DOJ\u2019s Civil Division to prioritize investigations into doctors who provide such care. <\/p>\n The complainants, 16 attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania, argue that transition care is legally protected in all of their states and that federal attempts to block the care \u201ctrammel on State power\u201d in violation of the Tenth Amendment. They also argue that the administration\u2019s actions force providers to make \u201can impossible choice\u201d of either defying the federal threats or complying and violating their state\u2019s laws against discrimination in medical care. <\/p>\n \u201cThese efforts to chill the provision of healthcare for adolescents \u2014 even in states where such care is legal and protected \u2014 show that the Agency Defendants have adopted and are engaged in a systematic effort to leverage the threat of criminal and civil enforcement to eliminate medically necessary care for transgender adolescents in the United States,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Americans support Trump’s efforts to stop “the despicable mutilation and chemical castration of children,” using inflammatory language to describe transition care. <\/p>\n “The President has the lawful authority to protect America\u2019s vulnerable children through executive action, and the Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue,” Rogers said.<\/p>\n A DOJ spokesperson, when asked to comment on the lawsuit, said in a statement, “As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, this Department of Justice will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of \u2018care.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As the DOJ has opened investigations into some providers of transition care for minors, a rising number of hospitals \u2014 including those in states without laws that restrict trans health care \u2014 have announced that they plan to close their youth gender clinics. <\/p>\n Just in the last two months, the Children\u2019s Hospital of Richmond at VCU<\/a>, Yale New Haven Health<\/a>, Connecticut Children\u2019s Medical Center<\/a>, Children\u2019s National Hospital<\/a>, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center<\/a>, UChicago Medicine<\/a> and the Children\u2019s Hospital of Los Angeles<\/a> have announced they will end gender-affirming care programs for minors and, in most cases, anyone under 19.<\/p>\n The complaint notes that the administration has celebrated these announcements, pointing to a press release from the administration last week<\/a> titled, \u201cPresident Trump Promised to End Child Sexual Mutilation \u2014 and He Delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese changes have been touted by Defendants as precisely what was intended by their unlawful and disingenuous targeting: the end of healthcare for transgender individuals under 19,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs ask the court to declare unconstitutional the portion of Trump\u2019s order that would bar federal funding from going to hospitals that provide transition care to people under 19 and prohibit the DOJ from enforcing the memos from Bondi and Shumate.<\/p>\n Nearly all major medical associations in the United States, such as the American Medical Association<\/a>, the American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a> and the American Psychological Association<\/a>, support access to transition-related care for minors and oppose restrictions on it.<\/p>\n