Associated Press
President Donald Trump’s plan to pull federal funding from institutions that provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth will remain blocked on a long-term basis under a federal judge’s ruling in Seattle late Friday.
U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King previously granted a two-week restraining order after the Democratic attorneys general of Washington, Oregon and Minnesota sued the Trump administration — Colorado has since joined the case.
King’s temporary order expired Friday, and she held arguments that day before issuing a preliminary injunction blocking most of Trump’s plan pending a final decision on the merits of the case. She rejected a portion of the states’ challenge regarding the order’s protections against female genital mutilation, on grounds that “no credible threat of prosecution exists” in such cases.
Two of Trump’s executive orders are at issue in the case.
One, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism,” calls for stripping federal money from programs that “promote gender ideology.”
The other, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” calls for the federal government to cut off research and educational grants for institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, that provide gender-affirming care to people under age 19. Several hospitals around the country ceased providing care, including puberty blockers and hormone treatments, following the order.
Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care, and Trump’s “Protecting Children” order suggests that practice could end. It also raises the prospect that medical professionals could be criminally charged for providing gender-affirming care under a law that bans medically unnecessary genital mutilation of underage females — a notion that the states suing Trump call repugnant and legally unsupportable.
Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth — a condition called gender dysphoria — are far more likely to suffer from severe depression and to kill themselves if they do not receive treatment, which can include evaluation by a team of medical professionals; a social transition, such as changing a hairstyle or pronouns; and eventually puberty blockers or hormones. Surgery is extremely rare for minors.
In her ruling Friday, the judge said the order was not limited to children or to irreversible treatments and that it doesn’t target medical interventions performed on cisgender children.
“In fact, its inadequate ‘means-end fit’ would prevent federally funded medical providers from providing necessary medical treatments to transgender youth that are completely unrelated to gender identity,” she wrote. “For example, a cisgender teen could obtain puberty blockers from such a provider as a component of cancer treatment, but a transgender teen with the same cancer care plan could not.”
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
16 comments
Oscar
March 1, 2025 at 5:19 pm
Lauren King is yet another Biden appointed woke leftist hack. The only constitutional crisis we are facing is the one being created by activist judges ruling based on their feelings rather than the law.
JD
March 1, 2025 at 5:48 pm
Oh, Oscar (Meyer Bologna), you’re so close to getting it, just a little critical thinking away!
You say the judge ruled based on “feelings”?
Absolutely! Feelings of basic human decency, like not cutting off funding for pediatric cancer patients just to score cheap points in a manufactured culture war.
I get it. Why let common sense get in the way of a good tantrum? After all, the GOP’s specialty is throwing out the baby with the bathwater… and then blaming the Democrats for the mess.
Oscar
March 2, 2025 at 6:55 pm
I was going to properly reply to your post but decided it is just too incoherent to bother plus it’s not like your deranged leftist microbrain would even understand.
JD
March 2, 2025 at 8:48 pm
So because you’re lacking the facilities to understand you hurl insults. Or did you not read the article and the judges quote at the end? So you saw a headline and mouth shot some Fox talking points and insults. The GOP way. Propagandist. Go back to Russia or 1939.
PeterH
March 1, 2025 at 6:33 pm
What law are you talking about?
PeterH
March 1, 2025 at 6:32 pm
Donald Trump lacks the medical and psychological expertise to make such decisions for the thousands of transgender American men and women who in the past were so isolated and desperate that to 40% or more committed suicide.
Oscar
March 2, 2025 at 6:50 pm
Treat the mentally ill who are gender confused…. The only thing I’m confused about is how there can possibly be so many leftwing complete imbeciles…
Michael K
March 1, 2025 at 6:44 pm
Cruelty is always the point – the more the self-righteous MAGAs can humiliate the “other” people, the more the hard core MAGA hats eat it up. Soon, the group of “others” who do not conform expands, and the circle of hatred grows. Of course, the hate often spreads in the name of “Christian” values or some vague “God” blessing their exclusionary vision of America, but it does not include you.
Earl Pitts "SAGE GENDER EXPERT" AMERICAN
March 1, 2025 at 7:36 pm
Good Evening America,
I, Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN, am filing an Investigative challange to the rulling of U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King as we believe she is biased and un-qualfied to have rendered such a rulling due to the fact that, U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King, has a ginormous “BULL OF THE WOODS JOHNSON AND LOW-HANGING PEANUTS” under her BLACK ROBE. (Of course not as Ginormous Nor as Low-Hanging as mine,
Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN
Russian Mole Follower
March 1, 2025 at 7:49 pm
How’s the weather in Moscow this morning Boris
AOC
March 1, 2025 at 7:57 pm
Thank you Earl,
All this talk about ginormous johnsons and low hanging fruit is making me moist. Please email the pics of your findings and if I may be so bold yours too Big Earl.
Thanks in advance AOC
Rick Whittaker
March 1, 2025 at 8:08 pm
You’ve got my email address AOC when Earl emails the johnson pics, I would like to juice to them too. Would you please forward them to me?
Rick
Earl Pitts "SAGE GENDER EXPERT" AMERICAN
March 1, 2025 at 8:31 pm
OK, America, this has gone a little farther down the path of perversion than I, Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN, ever intended. I appoligise for the perversion so “ALL OUT THERE ON DISPLAY” and disassociate myself, Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN, from all this ginormous johnson leftist lustfull perverse back and forth talk in regards to my ginormous johnson.
WAKE UP AMERICA,
Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN
Peachy
March 1, 2025 at 8:15 pm
I stopped reading at Seattle. Whatever happened to that idiot Seattle Demo Mayor and “The Summer of Love”?
Earl Pitts "SAGE GENDER EXPERT" AMERICAN
March 1, 2025 at 8:35 pm
Thanks Peachy,
I, Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN, agree 100% with your Sage Wisdom, I cant help the fact that I was born with an “Extra Donkey”,
Earl Pitts “SAGE GENDER EXPERT” AMERICAN
Michael K
March 2, 2025 at 10:39 pm
Miss Spoke stopped reading all right. All of her/their/its personas. It’s obvious, hilarious, but mostly sad.
BTW, Seattle gave us the jet age (Boeing), computing (Microsoft), retail innovation (Nordstrom, Starbucks, Costco, Amazon), United Parcel Service (UPS), the largest charitable foundation in the US (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). It’s a top destination for Millennials/Gen Y attracted by the depth of talent, technology and tolerance – and it’s the most highly educated big city in America – 70% of those 25 and older hold a college degree.
No wonder they hate it. Too diverse, too much freedom, too smart, too young.
Comments are closed.