A federal judge has issued a nationwide order blocking executive orders from President Donald Trump that attempts to criminalize gender-affirming healthcare provision to transgender youth.
US District Judge Brendan Herson for the Maryland District has given a preliminary injunction to several young transgender adults and adolescent families whose access to gender-affirming care has been destroyed by Trump’s order. These families are joined by the Pro-LGBTQ advocacy groups PFLAG National and GLMA, and are the nation’s largest organization of LGBTQ and Allied Health Professionals.
Trump’s executive order issued earlier this year threatens to promote healthcare providers who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to people under the age of 19, Yank funding from agencies and hospitals that provide such treatment, and entities that promote so-called “gender ideology,” and entities that promote Bath’s federal insurance programs, such as Medicaid and Bath’s federal insurance programs.
Herson’s injunction was issued one day before a previously issued temporary restraining order expired. It also prevents Trump’s executive orders from coming into effect in Washington, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado shortly after similar, but separate rulings by a Seattle-based federal judge.
In his ruling, Harson reports that the plaintiffs in the PFLAG case have demonstrated that by proving that Trump overestimated his authority by issuing an executive order, they are more likely to make their case successful, and that the order itself discriminates and proves unconstitutional on the basis of gender. Washington Post.
“The challenged provisions of the executive order place significant conditions on federal funds that Congress did not provide,” he wrote, citing past legal precedents. “The Constitution simply does not allow this.[t]There are no constitutional provisions that allow the President to enact, amend or abolish the law. ”
In the first week since Trump signed an order restricting gender-affirming care, hospitals across the country suddenly stopped medical care for transgender individuals, canceled appointments and drove patients away. National Public Radio. This led to protest Against an executive order.
On February 11, many providers who previously stopped providing care after Hurson issued their first temporary restraint order said they would resume services for transgender patients. As a result of the recent injunction, doctors and hospitals offering gender-affirming treatment will be allowed to continue providing care to existing patients, but cases will pass through court.
GLMA executive director Alex Sheldon called Herson’s ruling “an important step in resisting the Trump administration’s militant agenda.”
“The administration has tried to bully providers and renounce its ethical obligations, but we will not step back,” Sheldon said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for the freedom to work as a medical professional, not on political ideology, and on the basis of the right that all patients will receive something easy from discrimination and fear.”
Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project, said Herson’s decision would provide relief to transgender youth, their families and health care providers who have been torn between violating the enforcement order and continuing gender-affirming care.
“The order from President Trump is a direct effort to threaten the well-being of transgender people, but was enacted by denialing equal protections under the law and forcing doctors to follow Trump’s own ideology rather than best medical judgment,” Bullock said in a statement. “It’s hard to guess a more eerie form of discrimination, as Judge Harson told himself, than pretending that there is no group of people being targeted.”
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
