USA lifts ban of "Gender affirming care"

[QldGCandproud]

Ban on "Gender affirming care" lifted by Federal Court in the USA.
Pretty disappointing for all those future detransitioners. The Guardian includes some statements of course which have been completely debunked around the efficacy of this "care", and the rarity of proceeding to surgery.
I'm soooo tired of this shit.

RFK Jr agenda suffers another loss as trans advocates hail ‘huge step forward’ | US healthcare | The Guardian share.google/psuga503gWCMTftle

Also link here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/23/rfk-jr-agenda-trans-care-children

A federal judge overturned the Trump administration’s ban on gender-affirming care for children on Saturday, decrying Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “wanton disregard” for the law that “causes very real harm to very real people”.
It’s another loss for Kennedy’s agenda as secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the second Trump administration – an agenda that has focused on restricting healthcare, including vaccines, abortion and gender-affirming care.

A different legal decision recently halted the agency’s attempt to raze vaccine recommendations, and new research and regulatory decisions have undermined controversial announcements by Trump and Kennedy on autism.

“Unserious leaders are unsafe,” Mustafa T Kasubhai, a US district judge in Oregon wrote in the opening to his final judgment on the gender-affirming care case, a 49-page decision that excoriated the administration for disregarding the law and overreach in its regulations. The judge also barred the administration from implementing similar policies under any other names to restrict care nationally by withholding funding.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, called the ruling “incredibly powerful” and “far-reaching”.
“It enjoins them from doing anything to interfere with the authority of states to regulate medical practice,” Minter said.

continues on….

Oh FFS 🤦‍♀️

Not you, OP. This news.

I now feel like I understand how it took 40 years for lobotomies to come to an end as a mental health "treatment" in the UK.

I guess it's a glimpse of what we can expect across this side of the pond too. Flip-flopping between bans and reinstatements until (presumably) enough legal wins have been built up to make the healthcare industry recognise that this is not a good idea. Thankfully, we don't currently allow children to have healthy body parts chopped off (like they do in the States) but I can sadly imagine the NHS taking the puberty blocker trial and cross-sex hormones provision off hold.... until it all eventually gets banned. I'm guessing that adults over 25 will still be allowed access in the future.. but perhaps not, given the cost to the NHS of someone being a lifelong medical patient (with an endochrine system that has been destroyed by the "treatment") and some comparative analogies e.g
the forthcoming blanket ban on smoking (I guess the tobacco industry failed to convince the government that lung cancer was an acceptable risk) and the eventual end to lobotomies.

To be fair, the way the administration tried to do this was pretty much bound to fail. They were using the with holding of medicare money as a way to coerce compliance and medicare was created with an explicit bar on the Federal government being able to use it to influence state medical policy. The ban was a pretty cynical political play to their base rather than good politics creating sound protection for minors.

There are still State bans to varying degrees in over half of the States and this decision does not affect those.

Ah, OK. So the impact is actually limited, in a literal (legal) sense. It sounds more like it's a case of spin wars.

I keep forgetting that the federal laws in the US aren't necessarily at the top of the legal food chain.

Here's a good summary of the case

What This Means for Hospitals and States
Providers in Plaintiff States: The ruling provides immediate and direct protection to healthcare providers in the 22 Plaintiff States. HHS and its OIG cannot rely on the Kennedy Declaration* —or any materially similar policy—to initiate exclusion proceedings against providers who furnish transgender healthcare to minors consistent with professionally recognized standards of care in those states. Providers who suspended transgender healthcare in response to the Kennedy Declaration should consult with counsel about resuming those services in light of this ruling.

Providers in Non-Plaintiff States: The injunction and declaratory relief are expressly limited to the Plaintiff States. However, the vacatur of the Kennedy Declaration has nationwide effect, as it sets aside the agency action itself. While this does not provide the same level of certainty as the injunction affords providers in the Plaintiff States, it offers meaningful legal protection. Providers outside the Plaintiff States should consult with counsel to evaluate the implications for their practices.

Potential for appeal: The government will likely appeal to the Ninth Circuit. If HHS obtains a stay pending appeal, the Kennedy Declaration could be temporarily reinstated. Appellate proceedings will be monitored closely.

Remaining claims: The Plaintiff States did not move for summary judgment on their fifth count, which alleges the Kennedy Declaration is arbitrary and capricious. That claim remains pending.

Related litigation to monitor: This ruling addresses the Kennedy Declaration only. It does not affect the separate DOJ directives at issue in Massachusetts v. Trump, Case No. 25-cv-12162 (D. Mass.), which threaten criminal and civil prosecution under the Female Genital Mutilation Act, the False Claims Act, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. We recommend that providers continue to monitor that case—and consult with counsel—regarding potential DOJ enforcement exposure.

Key Takeaway
The Oregon v. Kennedy decision is a forceful rebuke of HHS’s attempt to unilaterally override state-recognized standards of care for pediatric transgender healthcare. The court found the Kennedy Declaration unlawful on every ground raised by the plaintiffs in their motion for summary judgment and imposed broad remedial relief, including a permanent injunction that extends beyond the Kennedy Declaration itself to cover any materially similar future policy. For providers in the Plaintiff States, this ruling eliminates the immediate threat of exclusion from federal healthcare programs based on the provision of transgender healthcare to minors.

• “Kennedy Declaration,” is a directive issued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in December 2025 without notice-and-comment rulemaking. The Kennedy Declaration purported to establish that transgender healthcare for minors falls below professionally recognized standards of health care and threatened providers with exclusion from Medicare and Medicaid.

more info at
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/federal-court-strikes-down-kennedy-1034539/

They had a hearing in Massachusetts v Trump on Thursday.

Here's a recent article on Massachusetts v Trump. That case is similar to Oregon v Kennedy (the case above) but deals with memos from the US Department of Justice instead of the directive from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

"BOSTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice faced a skeptical judge on Thursday in its bid to defeat a lawsuit by Democratic-led states challenging part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on providers of gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

Justice Department attorney John Bailey, during a hearing in Boston federal court, argued the states lacked legal authority to challenge internal DOJ guidance directing its prosecutors to prioritize investigations of transgender youth care.

The guidance related to the Republican president's January 2025 executive order directing the Justice Department to prioritize such probes. The order also called for ending federal support for healthcare that aids the transition of transgender youth. . . .

[U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, a Biden appointee,] described the Justice Department's actions under Trump as an apparent threat to hospitals nationwide to cease providing gender-affirming care to children, or else "we'll prosecute you. The prosecutions almost appear to be a backup plan," she said.
The lawsuit was filed in August by 16 states and the District of Columbia, and takes aim at a pair of directives to DOJ employees, starting with an April 2025 memo from now-former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. by 16 states and the District of Columbia, and takes aim at a pair of directives to DOJ employees, starting with an April 2025 memo from now-former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi."

www.reuters.com/legal/government/judge-skeptical-doj-bid-defeat-states-case-challenging-transgender-care-probes-2026-04-23/