Minnesota sues to block Trump order against gender-affirming care

Minnesota along with two other states sued Friday to block an executive order by President Trump that cuts federal funding to organizations providing gender-affirming care to children and teens.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison called Trump’s order unconstitutional but also “mean-spirited and deeply hurtful” because it would discourage people younger than 19 from receiving treatments that help their bodies align with their identified genders.

“I will not stand by and let Donald Trump weaponize the federal government against young people just trying to be themselves and against doctors providing the best care they can to their patients,” Ellison said in a statement.

The federal action is the latest by Ellison and states with mostly Democrat leaders to challenge orders by Trump since his return to the White House. Minnesota on Tuesday had joined with 22 states to block Trump’s order from cutting off certain types of federal aid, and on Monday had joined with 11 states to warn federal employees against taking a “misleading” budget-cutting buyout offer.

Trump’s order against gender-affirming care also called for a Department of Justice investigation against Minnesota and others with so-called trans refuge laws. Friday’s lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Washington, seeks to block any federal action based on this order. Oregon also joined in the case.

Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation in 2023 that shielded families and children traveling to Minnesota for gender-affirming care from repercussions — such as the removal of a child from parental custody —under another state’s law. Families with transgender children have reportedly relocated to Minnesota to escape punitive laws elsewhere.

President Trump in his Jan. 28 order argued that the proliferation of gender-affirming care is a “dangerous trend” and “a stain on our Nation’s history” because, the order said, many children and teens undergo transformative treatments that they later regret.

A 2022 survey estimated that 300,000 U.S. teens age 13 to 17 were transgender, about 1.4% of the population in that age group.

The order threatened to cut off millions of dollars in grants and other financial resources to organizations such as the University of Minnesota and Children’s Minnesota.

Children’s Minnesota clinicians phase in forms of gender-affirming care at different age levels. Psychological support is offered to transgender children in their grade-school years. Medications that block the effects of puberty are offered in adolescence, and hormones that promote masculine or feminine features are offered to older teens.

A spokesman for the pediatric health care provider declined comment Friday, other than to “note that our services remain unchanged.”

Programs in other states had paused their treatment programs as they evaluated the impact of Trump’s order. A spokesperson for M Health Fairview said that its pediatric gender care program remains open.

The lawsuit doesn’t specify the amount of money at risk for Minnesota organizations, but notes that the executive order threatens more than $400 million in federal grants that the University of Washington School of Medicine receives each year.