US states sue over Trump's targeting of providers of transgender youth medical care
Sixteen states, along with the District of Columbia, in a lawsuit, opens new tab filed in federal court in Boston, argued Trump unconstitutionally trampled on their rights to regulate medicine with an executive order in January that directed prosecutors to prioritize investigations of transgender youth care.
The executive order, which also directed an end to all federal funding or support for healthcare that aids the transition of transgender youth, formed the basis of two recent Justice Department directives that the lawsuit also challenges.
Those policies include an April memo from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directing prosecutors to investigate cases involving procedures that she said would violate a federal law barring "female genital mutilation."
Bondi also directed the department to launch civil investigations into medical providers and pharmaceutical companies that manufacture and distribute puberty blockers and hormones prescribed by doctors.
The Justice Department last month said it sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.
Democratic state attorneys general argue the Justice Department's efforts are part of a campaign by the Republican president's administration to intimidate healthcare providers into ceasing to provide such treatments to people under the age of 19, even in states where such treatments are legal.
"This administration is ruthlessly targeting young people who already face immense barriers just to be seen and heard, and are putting countless lives at risk in the process," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The states argue that by invoking the female genital mutilation statute, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the False Claims Act, the Justice Department is relying on laws that were never intended to be used to address the conduct at issue.
They say Trump's executive order violates the states' rights under the U.S. Constitution's 10th Amendment. Regulation of the practice of medicine has long been left to the states.
Conservative lawmakers in 25 states have in recent years adopted bans on various forms of gender-affirming care for adolescents. The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld one such ban in Tennessee, delivering a major setback for transgender rights advocates.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
5 minutes ago
- Reuters
Russia will still prop up rouble in August as Trump deadline looms
MOSCOW, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Russia will continue to support the rouble with net sales of foreign currency, according to new figures from the Finance Ministry released on Tuesday, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline to show progress towards peace in Ukraine. The Finance Ministry said it will cut its foreign currency sales from its rainy day National Wealth Fund to 0.3 billion roubles ($3.75 million) a day from August 7 to September 4, down from 0.82 billion roubles previously. The measure will reduce the state's overall daily net forex sales, which combine forex operations by the ministry and the central bank, by 5% to 9.24 billion roubles a day from August 7. Under a complex set of foreign currency operations, the central bank buys and sells forex to ensure a steady supply on the domestic market and also on behalf of the finance ministry, which runs the National Wealth Fund. The ministry said it will sell 6.2 billion roubles of foreign currency during this period, compared with 18.77 billion roubles previously. Trump has said that from August 8 he will impose new sanctions on Russia as well as on countries that buy its energy exports, unless Moscow takes steps to end its 3-1/2 year war with Ukraine. The rouble weakened initially in response to Trump's threats but has since rebounded. The rouble traded 0.2% weaker at 79.95 to the U.S. dollar at 0930 GMT on Tuesday. ($1 = 79.9000 roubles)
The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
‘I'll be back': Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to take on Newsom over gerrymandering in California
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has condemned gerrymandering as 'truly evil' after current office holder Gavin Newsom unveiled his redistricting plan. In retaliation against President Donald Trump 's push for aggressive partisan redistricting in Texas, Newsom said he aims to redraw California's U.S. House maps before the 2026 midterm elections. Now Schwarzenegger, the architect of California's nonpartisan redistricting system, is preparing to campaign against Newsom's partisan gerrymandering proposal. 'He calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it's truly evil for politicians to take power from people,' Schwarzenegger spokesperson Daniel Ketchell told Politico on Monday. 'He's opposed to what Texas is doing, and he's opposed to the idea that California would race to the bottom to do the same thing.' Newsom said Thursday that he was considering asking the state Legislature to place his proposition to alter the map on November's Uniform District Election ballot. 'This is not going to be done in a back room,' Newsom told reporters. 'It's going to be given to the voters for their consideration in a very transparent way, so they know exactly what they're doing.' The move is seen as a response to Texas lawmakers' plan to approve a new congressional map aimed at flipping five Democrat-held districts to Republican control. The Legislature's ongoing special session ground to a halt on Sunday after Texas Democrats fled from their state to Chicago and New York evening to block the redistricting vote. On Monday, Newsom, a Democrat, told reporters that he is ready to fight 'fire with fire.' If the governor secures a two-thirds majority in the state Legislature to place his proposal on the ballot, it could derail a key legacy of Schwarzenegger's seven-year tenure as California's last GOP governor from 2003 to 2011. Schwarzenegger is reportedly preparing to be the face of a 'No' campaign, reuniting many of the forces that came together during his time in office to oppose Newsom's measure if it appears on the ballot. Charles Munger Jr, a GOP donor who funded the push to create the independent commission, wrote on X last month: 'Any attempt to undermine the nonpartisan California Redistricting Commission will be strongly opposed in the courts and at the ballot box.' Munger, the son of Warren Buffett's business partner, was one of the California Republican Party's leading funders during Schwarzenegger's governorship. The 78-year-old Hollywood star led the effort to curb gerrymandering in California, resulting in two successful ballot measures in 2008 and 2010. That pair of constitutional amendments placed an independent commision, not a lawmaker, in charge of drawing California's political map once per decade. After leaving office, Schwarzenegger lobbied other states to adopt nonpartisan systems with mixed results in Michigan, Colorado, Virginia and Ohio. He also filed an amicus brief when the U.S. Supreme Court took up a landmark case on gerrymandering in 2019, arguing that the tactic undermines democracy and voter trust.
The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
Newsom threatens ‘fire with fire' if Republicans push ahead with redistricting plans in Texas
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to 'fight fire with fire' in response to moves in Texas to redraw the electoral map to favor Republicans. Newsom was speaking as Greg Abbott, his Lone Star State counterpart, ordered the arrest of the 51 state Democratic lawmakers who have left Texas to prevent its House of Representatives voting through the redistricting proposals advantageous to the GOP by denying it a quorum. Speaking of the possibility of the Sunshine State engaging in its own retaliatory redistricting push to weaken Republican-leaning districts, Newsom said: 'The proposal that we're advancing with the legislature has a trigger only if they move forward, to dismantling the protocols that are well-established. 'Would the state of California move forward in kind? Fighting? Yes, fire with fire.' He acknowledged, however, that going ahead with such a step would have to be done within the law, commenting: 'That process has to have the concurrence, the support of two-thirds of the legislature. 'The maps, we believe, should be transparent. They should be provided in a transparent way to the public, and as a consequence, those maps are being processed and will be brought to light.' He also said that California citizens should be given a chance to have their say: 'We will offer them the opportunity to make judgments for themselves, again, only if Texas moves forward. 'I'll reinforce that we believe it should be a national model, independent national redistricting, and it would revert back to its original form, but it's done in response to the existential realities that we're now facing. 'Things have changed, facts have changed, so we must change.' Newsom continued: 'They've triggered this response and we're not going to roll over and we're going to fight fire with fire, but we're going to do so not just punching with the weight of the fourth largest economy, the most populous state in our union, the size of 21 state populations combined. 'We also will punch above our weight in terms of the impact of what we're doing, and I think that should be absorbed by those in the Texas delegation. Whatever they are doing will be neutered here in the state of California, and they will pay that price.' Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have likewise indicated they could be prepared to act in kind if Texas proceeds with its gerrymandering manoeuvre. The desperate measures taken by the Texas Democrats to block the redistricting – which saw them jet out for New York, New Jersey and Illinois on Sunday to stop a vote going ahead – came after the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting advanced the GOP's proposals on Saturday. Republicans hold a majority in the Texas House of Representatives, as they do in its Senate, meaning the bid to revise the state's 38 congressional districts would likely pass both chambers and be signed off by Gov. Abbott. Doing so would create five extra right-leaning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., potentially expanding the congressional GOP's majority and easing the passage of President Donald Trump 's future legislative agenda. Faced with that likelihood, the Democrats left town, preventing the 150-seat House being able to hold the vote, which requires at least two-thirds of representatives to be present before it can grind into action. Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu led the exodus and has the support of the Democratic National Committee but he and his colleagues look set to be fined $500 for every day they are absent from the legislature and now face arrest under Abbott's orders after failing to return to Austin in time for a 3pm deadline set by Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
