A federal judge of Seattle published a preliminary injunction Friday evening, preventing the government from retaining federal hospitals in four states which offer sexist transition treatment for people under 19. The decision paid a key to a key element of the Trump Administration broad effort to limit the official recognition of transgender identity.
The judge, Lauren J. King, had made a temporary ban order in February, concluding that the States and the doctors pursuing the administration would most likely prevail in their assertion that President Trump’s plan is unconstitutional. Friday evening, the injunction reported that the government will have to overcome substantial judicial disputes to carry it out.
Judge King said Mr. Trump’s order probably violated the separation of powers between executive power and congress, and equal protection guarantees of the fifth amendment to young people looking for gender -related treatments. But she denied the challenge of the states of an article in the order ordering the Ministry of Justice to investigate providers Under a law which prohibits female genital mutilation, declaring that “no credible threat of prosecution exists” in such cases.
“The court holding here does not concern the political objectives that President Trump seeks to move forward; Rather, it is a question of reaffirming the structural integrity of the Constitution by ensuring that the executive action respects the authority of the congress, “wrote Judge King. “This result preserves a lasting system of checks and counterweights that the founders considered” essential to the preservation of freedom “.”
The injunction of judge King, appointed by former president Joseph R. Biden Jr., only applies to medical providers in Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Colorado, the states that brought the costume with three doctors affiliated with the School of Medicine of the University of Washington.
In a separate legal action, a Maryland judge temporarily asked the Trump administration to maintain federal funding in place for all providers in the country who offer gender medicine for young people. A more considered decision is expected in this case before the expiration of his emergency order next week.
The decision is the second preliminary injunction in a series of legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s efforts to block government agencies and the institutions funded by taxpayers to support the sexual transition, or recognize people according to their gender identity. Last month, Another federal judge blocked Mr. Trump’s directive To retain medical transitional treatments between the sexes for federal prisoners and house transgender women with men.
Administration has sought Bar of women and girls transgender competition in women sportyto openly prohibit transgender people from serve in the armyto no longer reflect the gender identities of transgender people on passportsand at bar References to gender identity in executive services and agencies.
Control over medical treatments, Entitled “Protection of children against chemical and surgical mutilation”, “ Declares that the objective is to protect young people from long -term effects that can make them regret to undergo treatments. He orders agencies to retain funds from medical suppliers who offer puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries for people under 19 for gender transition.
After its show, several hospitals have ceased to provide the treatments, and the trial says that others can start to do the same. A White House press release From the beginning of February, said that the order “already had its planned effect” and quoted several announcements of hospitals.
The injunction of judge King also prevents the government from carrying out parts of an earlier order that Mr. Trump has issued by ordering that funding for research or education does not support “gender ideology”, which it defines as “false affirmation that men can identify as and thus become women and vice versa”.
Young people looking for transitional treatments in most of the states led by the Republicans have already had to Travel elsewhere to receive them. Since 2021, in the midst of a fight against intensification of the moment when the medical transition is suitable for young people, 24 states have prohibited treatments for minors. In December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving a law of Tennessee which prohibits transitional treatments for minors and judges seemed to bend to maintain the law of this state.
In recent years, several European countries limited treatments after scientific journalsAnd the American Academy of Pediatrics said it was carry out his own examination of evidence. But the academy and most major medical groups in the United States continue to approve the gender medicine for young people and effective in relieving psychological distress that many young people say to live when their bodies do not reflect their internal sense of gender.
Trump’s order is an effort to exert financial pressure on clinics, largely in the States led by Democrats, which continue to provide the treatments.
In his ordinance, judge King wrote that the states had shown that they would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, as well as “devastating consequences for all kinds of medical research and treatment”, “ in the absence of an injunction. She also declared that young transgender transgenders would suffer “disastrous damages”.