The attorneys general of three states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Friday for trying to bar children from accessing gender-altering procedures.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late January titled “Protecting Children From Chemical And Surgical Mutilation.” Its goal is to restrict “chemical and surgical” sex-change procedures for minors.
“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the executive order stated. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”
Since then, local Democratic officials around the country have resisted, arguing that Trump is trying to deprive vulnerable American citizens of a fundamental right. Attorneys general Nick Brown of Washington state, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and Dan Rayfield of Oregon filed a lawsuit attempting to argue that Trump’s order is not only “cruel,” but unconstitutional.
Washington attorney general Nick Brown condemned Trump’s executive order to block transgender surgeries for young people.
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“The Order is a cruel and baseless broadside against transgender youth, their families, and the doctors and medical institutions that provide them this critical care. It is an official statement of bigotry from the President that directs agencies to openly discriminate against vulnerable youth on the basis of their transgender status and sex,” the lawsuit read. “It is also a blatant abuse of power. The Order usurps spending and legislative powers belonging exclusively to Congress, and seizes the States’ historic police powers to regulate the practice of medicine in violation of the Tenth Amendment.”
The lawsuit also objected to the very name of the executive order, arguing that the ter, “Surgical Mutilation” is “false and repugnant.”
The lawsuit also claims that the executive order is “blatantly unconstitutional” because it “violates the right to Equal Protection guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it singles out one vulnerable group for mistreatment. It singles out for restriction and criminalization medical treatments that affirm a patient’s gender if inconsistent with that patient’s sex.”
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Â (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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The lawsuit also argues the executive order “violates constitutional Separation of Powers by usurping Congress’s legislative powers” to claiming it violates the Tenth Amendment by arguing that “The President cannot unilaterally, and without any Congressional authorization whatsoever, interfere with the States’ prerogatives by criminalizing the provision of safe, effective, and necessary medical care.”
Attorney General Nick Brown at a press conference Friday called Trump’s executive order “disgusting” and “hateful.”
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“This president’s order is gross, it is disgusting, it is hateful, so we will always take action against illegal conduct. But this one has special resonance because of the hate behind it,” he said. “It promotes harassment and discrimination against people that are already marginalized. It risks their literal health and safety and their-that of their providers. We are requesting a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the harm that is being done because this is an emergency.”