Judge blocks Trump order restricting funds for transgender youth healthcare

Seattle Judge Lauren King on Friday night extended an order preventing the government from withholding federal funds from medical providers in four Democratic-led states that offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth under 19.

King's preliminary injunction blocks the government from enforcing two executive orders from the Republican president in the states of Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. According to Reuters, the judge sided with the attorneys general of those states, ruling that the executive orders interfered with Congress' authority to allocate federal funds.

King, who was appointed by Joe Biden, stated that, in her view, the president's orders unconstitutionally discriminate based on sex or transgender status, violating the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment.

In addition, she referenced President Trump's decision to recognize only two sexes:

"This Order denies the very existence of transgender people and instead seeks to erase them from the federal vocabulary altogether and eliminate medical care for gender dysphoria at federally funded medical institutions," she wrote.

The decision came on the same day that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill removing protections for transgender people from the state's Civil Rights Code. The bill also defines male and female based on a person's reproductive organs at birth.