Two Judges Block Executive Order Banning GAC
Two federal judges have issued temporary national blocks on Trump’s executive order that would ban gender-affirming care for Americans under 19.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
In uncommonly good news for the era, not one but two federal judges have temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order demanding that hospitals discontinue gender-affirming care for Americans under 19, a demographic that statistically includes some 18 year old Americans, thus denying adults their right to seek the medical treatments they and their doctors determine most appropriate for them.
The executive order, signed on January 28th and disingenuously titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” states that large numbers of doctors are “maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex,” an easily disproven lie.
The order goes on to say, “[countless] children soon regret that they have been mutilated,” even though we know that rates of both regret and detransition are shockingly low (lower than most common medical procedures and plastic surgeries), and that the brunt of detransitioners desist from medical and social transition due to external social pressures, and not because they are no longer trans.
Last Thursday, a federal district court issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the executive order. The restraining order was issued by Judge Brendan Hurson out of Baltimore, and it “prohibits federal agencies from conditioning or withholding federal funding based on the fact that a healthcare entity or health professional provides gender-affirming medical care to a patient under nineteen,” according to the ACLU of Maryland.
The restraining order comes as a result of a lawsuit against the executive order filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Maryland, and law firms Jenner & Block and Hogan Lovells “on behalf of transgender young adults and adolescents and their families whose health care has been disrupted by President Trump’s order.”
Then on Friday, just one day later, another temporary restraining order against Trump’s executive order was issued by District Court Judge Lauren King out of Seattle. This restraining order was issued thanks to a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Washington state, Oregon and Minnesota on behalf of three doctors. According to The Associated Press, the suit argues that the executive order “violates equal rights protections, the separation of powers and states' powers to regulate what is not specifically delegated to the federal government.”
In response, attorneys from the Justice Department argued, “The President's authority to direct subordinate agencies to implement his agenda, subject to those agencies' own statutory authorities, is well established.”
Similarly, the principal deputy White House press secretary, Harrison Fields, said that the executive order would hold up in court because “every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful.”
He continued, “Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly elected President Trump to secure the border, revitalize the economy, and restore common-sense policies.”
Arguments against the executive order being “completely lawful” include its potential violation of the 5th and 10th amendments to the United States Constitution, more and more considered a gentle suggestion by the president and his ravenous horde of bloodthirsty sycophants, rather than a binding document that spells out the rule of law for all Americans.
Both restraining orders are issued for 14 days while proceedings in each case are ongoing. As with any litigation, expect these suits to take quite a while to work their way through the courts. Further restraining orders or injunctive relief are, unfortunately, not guaranteed.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
