February, 04 2025, 03:26pm EDT
Families and Advocates Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Order Seeking to Restrict Access to Gender-Affirming Care
Transgender young adults and families with transgender youth joined PFLAG National and GLMA in a federal legal challenge against an executive order from the Trump administration attempting to shut down access to necessary medical care for transgender people under 19 nationwide.
The order directs federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that offer gender-affirming medical treatments such as puberty suppressants and hormone therapies to anyone under 19, threatening to shut down access to essential health care that is already out of reach for many. If enforced, the order would deny critical federal funds to hospitals, clinics, doctors, and other providers, leading some provider networks to prematurely cancel appointments with transgender youth and announce they are ceasing care altogether.
“When the Tennessee legislature passed a law that banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, I knew we had to leave the state so that my daughter could continue receiving the care she needs,” said Kristen Chapman of Richmond, Virginia, mother to 17-year-old plaintiff Willow. “We moved to Virginia in the summer of 2023, but struggled to find a provider that would accept our Medicaid insurance. As paying for her care out-of-pocket became prohibitively expensive, I tried for months to get an appointment at VCU, and I finally got an appointment for January 29, 2025. The day before our appointment, President Trump signed the executive order at issue in this case. The next day, just a few hours before our appointment, VCU told us they would not be able to provide Willow with care. I thought Virginia would be a safe place for me and my daughter. Instead, I am heartbroken, tired, and scared.”
Today’s lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Maryland, and law firms Hogan Lovells and Jenner & Block on behalf of two transgender young adults and five transgender adolescents and their families whose health care has been disrupted by President Trump’s order. Also joining the case are PFLAG National, the nation’s largest organization supporting LGBTQ+ people and their families, with over 550,000 members and supporters and nearly 350 chapters across the country; and GLMA, the country’s largest organization of LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals.
“PFLAG parents are good and decent people who love their trans kids and want them to grow up to become thriving, happy, healthy adults. Yet, President Trump and other politicians maliciously harm our families by denying them access to physician-prescribed, medically recommended care. This order puts trans and nonbinary young people and their families at risk—and we’re not putting up with it,” said Brian K. Bond (he/him), chief executive officer of PFLAG National. “To every transgender and nonbinary youth and young adult, every parent, every family, know this: PFLAG National is not backing down from this fight; PFLAG’s got you.”
“For decades, doctors and other health professionals have followed well-established medical standards to provide care that helps transgender youth thrive,” said Alex Sheldon, MA (they/them), executive director of GLMA. “Now, an extreme political agenda is trying to overrule that expertise, putting young people and their providers in danger. GLMA is taking this fight to court because our members will not stand by while politicians try to criminalize the care they provide and deny medically-necessary treatment to young people. We are confident that the law, science, and history are on our side.”
The complaint was filed in the federal District Court of the District of Maryland and will be imminently followed by a request for an immediate restraining order against the enforcement of President Trump’s order.
“President Trump has shown a clear determination to use every lever of government to drive transgender people out of public life,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project. “Today’s order lays out a clear plan to shut down access to life-saving medical care for transgender youth nationwide, overriding the role of families and putting politics between patients and their doctors. We will not allow this dangerous, sweeping, and unconstitutional order to stand.”
“The President’s denial of care order is morally reprehensible and patently unlawful. The federal government – particularly, this administration – has no right to insert itself into conversations and decision-making that rightly belongs only to patients, their families, and their medical providers” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist for Lambda Legal. “This broadside condemns transgender young people to extreme and unnecessary pain and suffering, and for minors, it subjects their parents to agonized futility in caring for their child — all while denying them access to the same medically recommended health care that is readily available to their non-transgender peers.”
In December 2024, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a landmark case challenging Tennessee’s categorical ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for transgender youth on the grounds the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating based on sex. The case began when an initial lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on behalf of three transgender adolescents and their families. While it is expected the new administration will reverse the stance of the U.S. government, the case remains briefed and argued, and the Supreme Court must consider the same question of whether Tennessee’s law violates the Equal Protection clause. A decision is expected from the court by June 2025.
The executive order targeting providers of gender-affirming care was one of several signed by the president since taking office calling for widespread discrimination against transgender people in their public and private lives. The president also issued orders targeting schools that protect the rights of transgender students, ban transgender people from serving in the military, ban transgender people from updating the gender marker on their U.S. passports, exclusively house transgender women in men’s prison facilities, and direct federal agencies to discriminate against transgender people employed by the U.S. government. These orders have described transgender people as “mutilated,” compared their identities to a “contagion,” and said they inherently lack “honesty” as compared to cisgender men.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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