A coalition of nineteen Democrat-led states has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to block new federal restrictions on medical providers that perform so-called gender-affirming treatments on minors.
The lawsuit follows an announcement last week by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said the federal government would cut off Medicare and Medicaid funding to any healthcare provider that offers sex-change drugs or surgical procedures to children.
“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy said at the time.
The lawsuit is being led by Oregon and challenges the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services to impose funding restrictions tied to pediatric gender-transition procedures. The complaint argues that the policy exceeds the secretary’s authority and violates federal law governing Medicare and Medicaid.
According to the lawsuit, the decision “exceeds the Secretary’s authority and violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Medicare and Medicaid statutes.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, whose office is spearheading the legal action, described child sex-change treatments as essential healthcare and accused the Trump administration of unlawfully interfering with medical decisions.
In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Rayfield’s office stated:
“Attorney General Dan Rayfield today led a coalition of 18 other states and the District of Columbia in suing to ensure the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot threaten providers with a so-called declaration that baselessly and unlawfully attempts to limit a family’s ability to work with their providers to make the healthcare decisions without interference from the federal government.
The declaration falsely claims that certain forms of gender-affirming care are “unsafe and ineffective” and threatens to punish any doctors, hospitals, and clinics that continue to provide it with exclusion from the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs.
“By targeting Oregon providers, HHS is putting care at risk and forcing families to choose between their personal health care choices and their doctor’s ability to practice,” said Attorney General Rayfield.
“Healthcare decisions belong with families and their healthcare providers, not the government.”
The states joining Oregon in the lawsuit include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
The legal challenge comes as the Trump administration moves to reverse policies implemented during the Biden-Harris administration that expanded access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Administration officials have argued that such treatments carry permanent physical and psychological risks and should not be funded by federal taxpayer dollars.
Kennedy addressed the issue directly during a press conference last week, sharply criticizing medical organizations and practitioners who continue to promote sex-change interventions for children.
“Doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex rejecting procedures that violate their sacred Hippocratic Oath, endangering the very lives they’re sworn to safeguard,” Kennedy said.
He accused major medical organizations of misleading the public about the safety of these treatments.
“The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex rejecting procedures could be good for children who suffer from gender dysphoria,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said those organizations have failed vulnerable children by promoting the idea that biological sex can be changed.
“They betrayed the estimated 300,000 American youth ages 13 to 17, conditioned to believe that sex can be changed,” he said.
He continued by accusing the medical establishment of abandoning its core ethical standards.
“They betrayed their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. So-called gender affirming care has done psychological and physical damage to vulnerable young people,” Kennedy said.
“This is not medicine, it is malpractice.”
This is a watershed moment.
— Overton (@overton_news) December 18, 2025
The medical establishment just lost its grip — and there’s no pretending anymore.
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. detonated the entire “gender-affirming care” narrative today, announcing that HHS will now restrict and reject the very framework that… pic.twitter.com/GO0mexELnh
The lawsuit sets up a major legal battle over the limits of federal authority in regulating medical practices involving minors and the use of federal healthcare funding.
The Trump administration has indicated it intends to defend the policy, framing it as a child-protection measure and a necessary correction to what it views as politically driven medical practices.
The case is expected to move through the federal courts in the coming months as both sides argue over whether providers who perform sex-change procedures on minors should continue receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare reimbursements.
Any parent or doctor who could do this to a child is insane.