A federal judge has given the Trump administration a deadline to respond to a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen states, including Michigan, over efforts to block federal funding for healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care.
The suit was filed last week, after U.S. Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared the department can exclude healthcare institutions from programs like Medicaid and Medicare if they provide gender-affirming care.
On Monday, a federal judge in Oregon (where the lawsuit was filed) gave all parties 120 days for pretrial pleadings and discovery.
Kennedy’s declaration states so-called “sex-rejecting procedures” like puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other types of treatments “fail to meet professional recognized standards of health care.”
He acknowledges that conflicts with guidance from major medical organizations including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), but says the medical evidence informing such guidance is “very low quality and should not be implemented.”
But that declaration conflicts with states’ authority to administer Medicaid programs, the lawsuit alleges.
“The Secretary has no legal authority to substantively alter the standards of care and effectively ban, by fiat, an entire category of healthcare,” according to the filing.
Michigan’s Medicaid program covers “medically necessary gender-affirming and gender-confirming medical treatment,” the suit notes.
“The Trump administration is once again unlawfully attacking essential health care for transgender youth,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement about the lawsuit. “While it is clear this White House does not consider the long-term consequences of the health, safety, and well-being of Americans, my office will continue to fight against those who illegally target the public health and medical treatment of Michiganders to push their political agenda.”
Asked to comment on the lawsuit, an HHS spokesperson referred Michigan Public to a press release about the declaration and proposed rules that would “bar hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on children under age 18 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
Nessel has repeatedly issued guidance to healthcare providers in the state that “the availability of federal funding has no bearing on Michiganders' right to seek and receive healthcare services without discrimination” under Michigan’s expanded civil rights law.
But access to gender-affirming care for Michigan youth has already been significantly limited during the current Trump administration, which has pressured healthcare institutions through a series of investigations, executive orders and proposed rules.
That campaign successfully pushed the University of Michigan health system to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth in August, with Corewell Health following suit in September.
