Federal Court Says Trump’s “Gender Ideology” Funding Ban Likely Unconstitutional

On Monday, a federal court ruled in favor of several federally qualified health centers and LGBTQ+ resource organizations that had either lost funding or faced grant threats under the Trump administration. The decision blocks portions of Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as programs accused of promoting so-called “gender ideology.” While the ruling applies only to the named plaintiffs, it is likely to ripple outward — restoring or preserving funding for trans and queer healthcare and research across the plaintiffs’ service regions. It also marks yet another instance in which courts have rejected Trump-era directives portraying transgender people as inherently dishonorable — or, at times, nonexistent.

The ruling, issued by Obama appointee Judge Jon S. Tigar, pointed directly to the discriminatory intent behind Trump’s executive orders. In siding with the plaintiffs, the court found that the provisions targeting “gender ideology” served no legitimate purpose beyond a transparent desire to harm transgender people: “Plaintiffs argue that the Gender Termination Provision and Gender Promotion Provision fail any level of scrutiny because the Gender Order is “transparently motivated by a ‘bare desire to harm’ transgender people.”… Defendants offer no response in their opposition, nor any argument that either provision advances any legitimate government interest, and thus concede the point.”

The case was brought by several major nonprofits serving the LGBTQ+ community, including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the GLBT Historical Society, the San Francisco Community Health Center, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Prisma, the New York LGBT Center, Bradbury-Sullivan, Baltimore Secular Humanists, and FORGE. Collectively, these organizations receive tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, many of which fund services for LGBTQ+ and transgender communities. At least one — San Francisco Community Health Center — has already lost funding for its HIV prevention programs targeting LGBTQ+ populations. The others have received threatening letters.

When asked in court whether or not certain conduct would result in the loss of federal funding, it was posited that even referring to transgender people as their identified gender could result in such funding being stripped. Attorneys for the federal government agreed that this would be impermissible under Trump’s executive orders: “As an example, Defendants took the position at hearing that an organization would lose its federal funding if it, in its day-to-day work on within the federally funded program, refers to clients by a pronoun other than Mr., Ms. Mrs., or Miss… under Defendants’ logic, an organization receiving federal funds to provide public health services — as many of Plaintiffs do — would not be able to refer to the clients they serve under that project by any pronoun that would “promote gender ideology,” even when addressing them by such pronouns is pure speech that has no relation to the public health objectives for which the federal grants they receive aim to fund.”

The court ruled that such a ban on the “promotion of gender ideology” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion” ran clearly afoul of equal protection on transgender status and also violated the separation of powers which provided their funding: “As one other court considering the Gender Order explained, the Court “cannot fathom discrimination more direct than the plain pronouncement of a policy resting on the premise that the group to which the policy is directed does not exist.” PFLAG II, 2025 WL 685124, at *23.”

Ultimately the court ruled against the federal government and issued a preliminary injunction from enforcing a variety of sections of Trump’s anti-transgender executive orders against them. It also rejected the government’s plea to issue an administrative stay on it’s order, meaning that the government will be immediately blocked from enforcing the anti-transgender provisions on the plaintiffs, which serve large numbers of LGBTQ+ people in their community who could be harmed should the government block their funding. The matter will go forward for a consideration on the merits in coming months.