State attorneys general sue Trump over targeting of medical professionals who provide gender identity care to trans youth

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Friday over President Donald Trump’s effort to use the Department of Justice to go after medical professionals who provide gender identity care to trans youth and 18-year-olds.

The complaint filed at a federal court in Boston argues that an executive order signed by Trump in late January and subsequent actions taken by the DOJ to investigate doctors around the country involved in administering such care are unlawful and must be permanently blocked.

Trump’s order specifically took aim at medical procedures intended to alter sex or gender that involve surgical interventions or the use of puberty blockers or sex hormones in those under 19-years-old.

The administration’s actions, the attorneys general argue, “have had the intended effect of chilling providers from (administering) gender-affirming care to individuals under 19 years old – care that is lawful and protected in plaintiff States.”

“The administration has explicitly threatened civil and criminal prosecution of providers of this care and launched criminal investigations into children’s hospitals,” they continued, “Without any reason to believe those hospitals have violated the statutes being invoked.”

The lawsuit comes as advocates for trans youth have turned to federal courts in an attempt to stave off a slew of steps Trump has taken since returning to the White House to end access to gender identity care in the US and rollback trans rights more broadly.

Among other matters, Trump’s order directed his Justice Department to investigate states that allow the procedures and “review” the enforcement of the US legal code that criminalizes female genital mutilation on minors. The department said earlier this month that it had “sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children,” though it didn’t specify which individuals or entities it had subpoenaed.

“These threats have no basis in law. No federal law prohibits, much less criminalizes, the provision or receipt of gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents,” the attorneys general argued.

More than two dozen states have passed bans on transgender care for children and teenagers, according to a CNN analysis of data from the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for LGBTQ rights. Those bans cover everything from puberty blockers and hormone therapy to surgeries, which are rarely performed on minors. But other states, including some that brought Friday’s lawsuit, have enacted laws seeking to protect access to such care for their residents.

The lawsuit argues in part that Trump’s actions are trampling over states’ “authority to regulate the practice of medicine and their considered judgment that access to this medical care for adolescents should be protected.”

The attorneys general behind the lawsuit are from New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington, DC. Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is also a plaintiff in the case.

Major mainstream medical associations — including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry — continue to advocate the practice of gender identity care and agree that it’s clinically appropriate care and can provide lifesaving treatment for children and adults.

CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

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