Gov. Matt Meyer signed an executive order making Delaware a shield state for providers of gender-affirming care. (Washington Blade file photo by Daniel Truitt)
A coalition of more than a dozen states, including Delaware, filed a lawsuit on Aug. 1 to block the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict access to medically necessary care for transgender youth.
Filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the lawsuit challenges Executive Order 14187 from January, in which President Donald Trump refers to gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries as “mutilation.” It declares that the policy of the United States will be to “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 suit argues that the EO violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Tenth Amendment by asserting federal overreach into state-regulated medical and healthcare decisions.
“It becomes clearer every day that there simply is no bottom to this administration’s cruelty,” said Attorney General Kathy Jennings in a press release. “With his agenda failing and his popularity plummeting, the president is turning to time-tested tactics of demagogues: turning vulnerable people into scapegoats, obsessing over their private lives, and intruding on medical decisions. These stunts make kids into political props and do nothing to help Americans. They are despicable, dangerous, and illegal.”
Gov. Matt Meyer recently signed an executive order making Delaware a shield state for providers of gender-affirming care. It prohibits state agencies from cooperating with investigations, subpoenas, or legal actions by other states against individuals or providers involved in care that is legal in Delaware.
According to the press release, providers in some states have begun to reduce or eliminate services due to federal actions. Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware is no longer providing gender-affirming care to new patients.
Medical experts and nearly every major national medical association endorses and supports the availability of gender-affirming care for transgender young people.
“Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and nonbinary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression,” the American Medical Association said in 2021.
Plaintiffs include the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, and the governor of Pennsylvania.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
