Transgender minors sue Trump administration over restrictions on gender-affirming care
WASHINGTON − Transgender adolescents and young adults are suing the Trump administration over the president’s efforts to restrict hormone therapy, puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care for minors.
Hospitals across the country have suspended or are reevaluating their gender-affirming care programs for patients under 19, creating fear and confusion among transgender youth and their families.
In a challenge filed in a federal court in Maryland on Tuesday, seven transgender minors and their advocates argue President Donald Trump’s directive to stop federal funding to any institution that provides gender-affirming care is unconstitutional.
Trump doesn’t have the power to impose his own conditions on funding approved by Congress, they said.
The challengers also argue Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order was “openly discriminatory” and violates the rights of thousands of transgender minors as well as the rights of their parents to make decisions about medical care.
Kristen Chapman, the mother of a 17-year-old transgender girl, said her daughter’s appointment for hormone therapy was cancelled by a Virginia hospital on Jan. 29.
Chapman said she had moved to Virginia from Tennessee in 2023 after that state banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
“I thought Virginia would be a safe place for me and my daughter,” Chapman said in a statement. “Instead, I am heartbroken, tired, and scared.”
The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ban and appeared during December’s oral argument to be likely to uphold it.
Trump’s order is not a direct ban. Instead, he targeted federally run insurance programs and hospitals and universities that receive federal money.
Virginia Commonwealth University Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond – where Chapman’s daughter had been scheduled to receive hormone therapy – received more than $114 million in federal funding in 2023, according to the lawsuit.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order declaring that only two sexes, male and female, are recognized by the federal government.
“These sexes are not changeable,” the order states.
In his second week, Trump directed the federal government not to help with gender transitions for individuals under the age of 19.
Gender-affirming care for minors is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.