Multiple families sued the Trump administration on Feb. 4 over an executive order barring federal support for transgender surgeries for children and teenagers under the age of 19 nationwide.
PFLAG National, an LGBT advocacy organization, and GLMA, an association of LGBT and allied health professionals in the United States, also joined the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs in the suit argue that President Donald Trump’s order is “unlawful and unconstitutional” and discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status.
“The Executive Orders were issued for the openly discriminatory purpose of preventing transgender people from expressing a gender identity different from their sex designated at birth,” lawyers for the families wrote in their complaint.
It instructs federally run insurance programs such as TRICARE and Medicaid to exclude coverage for “gender affirming care”—including puberty blockers and surgeries—directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice, and restricts federal funding for hospitals and universities that undertake these procedures.
The order also directs the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to review existing literature on best practices for promoting the health of children who “assert gender dysphoria, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or other identity-based confusion.”
According to the order, medical professionals across the country are “maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.”
The order states that many of these vulnerable minors lack the capacity to fully understand the long-term consequences of undergoing transgender surgeries and treatments and ultimately regret having such procedures.
Some are left facing costly medical bills for the rest of their lives or are left to struggle with lifelong medical complications related to such procedures, according to the order.
“Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it 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 order states.
In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that Trump’s order pertaining to transgender surgeries on minors is unconstitutional because it seeks to withhold federal funds previously authorized by Congress.
“Under our Constitution, it is Congress, not the President, who is vested with the power of the purse,” the lawsuit states. “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.”
Plaintiffs further argue Trump’s order infringes on parents’ fundamental rights to make medical decisions for their children, as well as the rights of transgender young adults.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.
