ACLU Response to Senate Moving One Step Closer to Passing ENDA

BALTIMORE – In a victory for transgender youth, their families, and their medical providers, a federal district court today issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of a Trump administration executive order attempting to shut down access nationwide to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19. The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Brendan Hurson can be found here. The nationwide restraining order prohibits federal agencies from conditioning or withholding federal funding based on the fact that a healthcare entity or health professional provides gender-affirming medical care to a patient under nineteen. “Good and decent parents of transgender kids should never be in the frightening position of having their child’s prescribed, medically necessary care canceled at the whim and threat of a politician. But that’s exactly what President Trump’s executive order did to PFLAG families with trans youth and young adults nationwide,” said Brian K. Bond (he/him), Chief Executive Officer of PFLAG National. “Today’s decision rights a grievous wrong to our nation's families and children, and PFLAG families will be vigilant to ensure our transgender loved ones receive the healthcare they need—as this legal ruling demands.” “Forcing providers to withhold medically-necessary, evidence-based care not only threatens patient health and well-being, but also undermines the integrity of our healthcare system in its entirety,” said Alex Sheldon (they/them), GLMA executive director. “Today's intervention by the court underscores the cruelty and recklessness that is embedded in this order and affirms our commitment to resist the administration’s extremist agenda that targets trans and non-binary young people and privileges political ideology over medical expertise. We are hopeful that this decision is a critical step toward restoring safety, trust, and stability in our healthcare institutions.” On Jan. 28, the president signed an executive order declaring that it is the policy of the United States not to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender transition for people under 19, which includes 18-year-olds who are legal adults in the states where they reside. The mandates in the order specifically focus on gender-affirming medical care, including hormones and puberty blockers. The order cross-references the definitions and other directives in a separate executive order signed by President Trump on Jan. 20, requiring discrimination against transgender people across much of the federal government. In the first week after the order was signed, some hospitals across the country — in Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Colorado, and Virginia at least — abruptly halted medical care for transgender people under age 19, canceling appointments and turning away patients, including some who had been receiving this care for most of their life. This prompted protests of support for transgender youth and in opposition to the order nationwide. On Feb. 4, a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Maryland, and law firms Jenner & Block and Hogan Lovells on behalf of transgender young adults and adolescents and their families whose health care has been disrupted by President Trump’s order. Also joining the case as plaintiffs are PFLAG National, the nation’s largest organization supporting LGBTQ+ people and their families, with over 550,000 members and supporters and nearly 350 chapters across the country; and GLMA, the country’s largest organization of LGBTQ and allied health professionals. "Across the country, this unlawful order from the president has sown fear among transgender youth and confusion among their providers,” said Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “But today’s decision should restore both their access to healthcare and protections under the Constitution. Providers who’ve suspended healthcare for their transgender patients should be left with no doubt that they can lift those suspensions and continue to provide healthcare and act in their best medical judgment without risking their funding or worse. “The president’s orders sought to take away from transgender young people the very care that they, their families, and their medical providers all agree is best for them – medical care that is evidence-based and well-established. But these decisions are for patients, their families, and their doctors to make, not for politicians or Washington bureaucrats,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care Strategist for Lambda Legal. “As today’s decision makes clear, the president does not have the power to unilaterally condition federal funding by requiring discrimination. To the contrary, our laws and Constitution forbid it. We hope that with today’s decision, healthcare entities can go back to caring for their patients instead of abandoning them over fears of losing admittedly critical federal funding.” “The ACLU of Maryland supports the right of every Marylander and families nationwide to make personal and very private decisions about healthcare with their medical providers, without harmful government interference,” said Dana Vickers Shelley, executive director of the ACLU of Maryland. “We are relieved that the courts have recognized the damage caused by the President’s unlawful executive order. This decision puts the president on notice that the ACLU of Maryland and our coalition partners will not rest while the Constitution is under siege.”  

PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Arizona, Prison Law Office, and Disability Rights Arizona asked a federal judge today to appoint a receiver to take over the management of healthcare in Arizona prisons. The request was made in a long-running class action lawsuit originally filed in 2012 on behalf of the nearly 30,000 people incarcerated by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR). The receiver, an independent authority appointed by the court, would assume control of ADCRR’s medical and mental health care systems and ensure that they meet constitutional standards. The request for receivership follows years of well-documented systemic healthcare failures in Arizona’s prisons, despite multiple court orders and over a decade of litigation. In April 2023, U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver issued a sweeping order acknowledging the failure to provide constitutionally adequate medical care and requiring ADCRR to make substantial changes. Since then, independent experts appointed by Judge Silver have issued multiple reports detailing ADCRR’s failure to comply with the court’s orders or to take necessary actions to remedy the systemic failures, resulting in preventable deaths, permanent injuries, and needless suffering. Corene Kendrick, deputy director at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, had the following statement: “Nearly two years after Judge Silver ordered Arizona officials to make comprehensive improvements to prison medical and mental health care, and over a decade after we filed this case, the state and its for-profit health care vendors have failed to address the avoidable suffering and deaths in their prisons. Appointing a receiver is a rare step reserved for the most extreme situations, but here we are. The stakes are life and death for the people in Arizona prisons not receiving the care they desperately need.” Below are additional statements from: Rita Lomio, senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office: “Judge Silver has described the financial cost of this litigation as ‘astronomical.’ The cost in terms of human suffering and preventable death is incalculable. Federal judges have used almost every tool at their disposal to address the crisis in the Arizona state prisons over the last decade, including millions of dollars in contempt fines, enforcement orders, and appointment of experts. Nothing has worked. The only remaining option with any realistic chance of success is receivership. A receiver can build systems, efficiencies, and competence, with the goal of transferring authority back to the State as soon as possible and finally ending this case.” Maya Abela, deputy legal director at Disability Rights Arizona: “For too long people in ADCRR have been placed at risk of serious harm and death because of the lack of appropriate mental health and medical care. People with disabilities are dying. These conditions must come to an end. The injunction must be implemented so that class members can obtain the relief the court has ordered, and at this stage it is abundantly clear that the action needed to advance this goal is appointment of a receiver.”

On his first day back in office in January 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that led the State Department to suspend its policy allowing transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people to update the sex designations on their passports, leading some with pending applications to have their passports withheld from them and others to receive a new passport with the wrong sex designation listed. Soon after, the ACLU sued on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people on the grounds the policy violates their constitutional rights and the Administrative Procedures Act.