Seven families of transgender children are suing to block President Donald Trump’s executive order barring health care facilities from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth, claiming the order is unconstitutionally trying to block funds already allocated to those providers.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in a federal court in Baltimore, Maryland. The families are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Lambda Legal, PFLAG and GLMA.
The suit alleges that Trump’s recent executive order, which seeks to withhold federal funds to health centers that provide gender-affirming care to patients under the age of 19, is unlawfully limiting funds to those centers.
“The President does not have unilateral power to withhold federal funds that have been previously authorized by Congress and signed into law, and the President does not have the power to impose his own conditions on the use of funds when Congress has not delegated to him the power to do so,” the lawsuit states.
Trump’s executive order has had “concrete and immediate effects,” including care centers across the country ending “the provision of ongoing and essential gender-affirming medical care to transgender patients.”
“Decades of clinical experience and a large body of scientific and medical literature” support the ongoing treatment of trans patients listed in the lawsuit, the brief contends, noting that, if they are left untreated, it could have “serious consequences for the health and wellbeing of transgender people, including adolescents.”
“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. “[Trump’s executive 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.”
Brian K. Bond, chief executive officer of PFLAG National, agreed.
“President Trump and other politicians maliciously harm our families by denying them access to physician-prescribed, medically recommended care,” Bond said. “This order puts trans and nonbinary young people and their families at risk — and we’re not putting up with it.”
Kristen Chapman, a parent of a 17-year-old transgender girl named Willow who is included in the lawsuit, recounted how her family had moved from Tennessee to Virginia after Tennessee had passed legislation barring gender-affirming care for children. Trump’s executive order made that move all the more heartbreaking, as Willow recently had an appointment at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical Center canceled.
“I tried for months to get an appointment at VCU, and I finally got an appointment for January 29, 2025,” Chapman said. “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,” Chapman added.
Trump’s order cited errant claims regarding gender-affirming care, falsely stating that it maims and sterilizes children and wrongly insinuating that there is a high rate of regret among those who receive such treatments. In fact, regret rates are incredibly low, and gender-affirming care for trans youth is endorsed by dozens of health organizations, which have noted that such treatment is often life-saving for those who receive it.
In addition to the lawsuit filed by these seven families, there have been demonstrations at hospitals that have canceled appointments for trans youth, including at the University of Virginia Health in Charlottesville, Washington D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital, and New York University-Langone in New York City, per reporting from Erin Reed.
“These protests are part of a rapidly expanding, interconnected movement aimed at fostering solidarity among marginalized communities as the Trump administration escalates attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Black and Indigenous people of color, and immigrants,” Reed, a transgender rights journalist, noted in her report. “Even among more privileged groups, there is a growing recognition that Trump’s policies threaten broad swaths of the American public. The surge in protests nationwide underscores this increasing unity, as communities come together in collective resistance.”
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