Dive Brief:
Provider groups filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration this week in an effort to reverse recent executive orders on “gender ideology” and gender-affirming care for minors.
On President Donald Trump’s first day in office, he mandated federal agencies recognize only two sexes, prompting federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to take down materials that refer to gender identity instead of sex. On Jan. 28, the administration barred providers from offering services including hormone treatments and gender-affirming surgeries to patients under the age of 19.
Plaintiffs say the first directive will deny physicians from accessing critical health information they need for treating patients, and the second will stop them from offering medically necessary care, harming patient interests.
Dive Insight:
The first complaint, filed by Doctors for America, a medical advocacy group representing over 27,000 physicians, argues the CDC has removed critical healthcare websites in the wake of a U.S. Office of Personnel Management memorandum, which ordered agencies to remove material about “gender ideology” at the behest of the Trump administration.
Removed material included pages monitoring and measuring youth mental health and preventing the spread of HIV, according to the lawsuit.
“The removal of this information deprives researchers of access to information that is necessary for treating patients, for developing clinical studies that produce results that accurately reflect the effects treatments will have in clinical practice, and for developing practices and policies that protect the health of vulnerable populations and the country as a whole,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also alleged the Food and Drug Administration scrubbed vital resources, such as pages recommending clinical research include more patients from underrepresented backgrounds.
The plaintiffs asked the court to have the pages restored immediately, citing the information’s importance to clinical practice and research.
The second case, which was filed by GLMA, an alliance of LGBTQ+ health professionals, transgender patients and others in the District Court of Maryland, seeks to block Trump’s policy banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Since the executive order was announced, multiple providers have said they’re pausing or reviewing their services to comply with the directive, including Virginia Commonwealth University Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Denver Health.
“We recognize the impact this change will have, and our commitment to creating a better future for children and families remains at the forefront of our mission,” Children’s National said last week. “We will do everything we can to ensure the same uninterrupted access to mental health counseling, social support, and holistic and respectful care for every patient at Children’s National.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration cheered the changes in a Monday press release.
“It’s already having its intended effect — preventing children from being maimed and sterilized by adults perpetuating a radical, false claim that they can somehow change a child’s sex,” the White House said.
Providers are in a complicated position when it comes to the federal ban.
Although most major medical groups, including the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support gender-affirming therapies for minors, the Trump administration has tied crucial federal funding to providers’ compliance with the directive.
“For decades, doctors and other health professionals have followed well-established medical standards to provide care that helps transgender youth thrive,” Alex Sheldon, executive director of GLMA, said in a press release accompanying the lawsuit on Tuesday. “Now, an extreme political agenda is trying to overrule that expertise, putting young people and their providers in danger. GLMA is taking this fight to court because our members will not stand by while politicians try to criminalize the care they provide and deny medically-necessary treatment to young people.”
On Wednesday, 14 attorneys general released a statement affirming their commitment to protecting access to gender-affirming care.
“The Trump administration’s recent Executive Order is wrong on the science and the law,” the coalition said. “Despite what the Trump administration has suggested, there is no connection between ‘female genital mutilation’ and gender-affirming care, and no federal law makes gender-affirming care unlawful. President Trump cannot change that by Executive Order.”
The coalition — which includes regulators from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island and Vermont — said they would challenge federal encroachment on states’ rights to protect patient access to care.
However, conflicting guidance from state and federal regulators could create further confusion for providers.
In a statement to Healthcare Dive on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Greater New York Hospital Association said the organization was in “close contact” with its nearly 280 members about the executive order.
The hospital association said it did not yet have a clear answer for providers about how to handle the executive order, but that “work is ongoing.”
