By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A coalition of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to block policies the U.S. Department of Justice adopted under President Donald Trump to crack down on providers of medical gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
Sixteen states, along with the District of Columbia, in a lawsuit 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.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Rod Nickel)
