By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal judge late Friday extended an order blocking U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from withholding federal funding from medical providers in four Democratic-led states that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth under 19.
U.S. 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 U.S. 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 January 20 which directed the federal government to recognize 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 February 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 January 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 U.S. Supreme Court, whose ultimate ruling could determine the legality of such bans.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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