US district court judge Lauren King in Seattle issued a preliminary injunction preventing the administration enforcing two of the Republican president’s executive orders in the states of Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, after concluding they were unconstitutional.
King, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, agreed with those states’ attorneys general that the two executive orders intruded on Congress’ power to appropriate federal funding by withholding research and education grants from medical institutions that provide such care.
She said Trump’s orders also unconstitutionally treated people differently based on their sex or transgender status in violation of the equal protection guarantee of the US Constitution’s fifth amendment.
She called out one of Trump’s executive orders that he signed on his first day back in the White House on Jan 20 which directed the federal government to recognise only two, biologically distinct sexes – male and female – and directed agencies to ensure grant funds do not promote “gender ideology.”
“This order denies the very existence of transgender people and instead seeks to erase them from the federal vocabulary altogether and eliminate medical care for gender dysphoria at federally funded medical institutions,” she wrote.
King, on Feb 14, issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s orders’ enforcement while she weighed issuing the longer-term injunction. Another judge in Maryland has temporarily blocked Trump’s orders nationwide while he also weighs an injunction request.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit was filed after Trump signed a second executive order on Jan 28 that announced the government “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
The treatments at issue include puberty-blocking medication, hormones and sometimes surgery.
More than half of the 50 states have passed laws or policies that ban gender-affirming care for minors, some of which have been blocked or overturned by the courts. A challenge to Tennessee’s ban has been heard by the US supreme court, whose ultimate ruling could determine the legality of such bans.