It comes one week after Trump signed an order calling for the federal government to stop funding the medical care through federal government-run health insurance programs including Medicaid and TRICARE.
Kristen Chapman, the mother of one of the plaintiffs in the case, said her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, from Tennessee in because of a ban on gender-affirming care in their home state. Her year-old daughter, Willow, had an initial appointment scheduled for last week with a new provider who would accept Medicaid.
But Trump signed his order the day before and the hospital said it could not provide care. The challenge also says that the order infringes on the rights of parents. Some health providers immediately paused providing the coverage while they assess how the order affects them.
New York Attorney General Letitia James , who has repeatedly battled Trump in court, told hospitals in her state Monday that it would violate the law to stop offering gender-affirming care to people under Josh Block, an ACLU lawyer on the case, said that medical providers should continue gender-affirming care for people under Alex Sheldon, executive director of GLMA, the doctors group in the legal challenge, said there are established medical standards for caring for transgender youth.
In addition to the orders on health care access and defining the sexes as unchangeable , Trump has also signed orders that open the door to banning transgender people from military service and set up new rules about how schools can teach about gender. Researchers have found that fewer than 1 in 1, adolescents receive the care, which includes treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries β though surgery is rare for children.
