U.S. Federal Courts
Federal court blocks part of Ala. trans medical treatment law
Trump-appointed judge issued late Friday ruling

In a 32 page ruling released Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Liles Burke preliminarily enjoined the state from enforcing the law criminalizing medical care for transgender minors in Alabama.
The law made it a felony for doctors and licensed healthcare providers to give gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones to trans minors.
Burke, who was nominated to the bench by former President Trump to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote that the section of the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act that makes treatment of trans minor children a felony; “the court finds that there is a substantial likelihood that Section 4(a)(1)–(3) of the act is unconstitutional and, thus, enjoins defendants from enforcing that portion of the act pending trial.”
Burke however ruled that all other provisions of the act remain in effect, specifically: (1) the provision that bans sex-altering surgeries on minors; (2) the provision prohibiting school officials from keeping certain gender-identity information of children secret from their parents; and (3) the provision that prohibits school officials from encouraging or compelling children to keep certain gender-identity information secret from their parents.
The U.S. Justice Department had challenged the state’s Senate Bill 184 — a bill that would criminalize doctors for providing best-practice, gender-affirming care to trans and non-binary youth.
In the filing by the Justice Department, the complaint alleges that the new law’s felony ban on providing certain medically necessary care to transgender minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The department is also asking the court to issue an immediate order to prevent the law from going into effect.
SB 184 makes it a felony for any person to “engage in or cause” specified types of medical care for transgender minors. SB 184 thus discriminates against trans youth by denying them access to certain forms of medically necessary care.
It further discriminates against trans youth by barring them from accessing particular procedures while allowing non-transgender minors to access the same or similar procedures. The penalties for violating the law include up to 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $15,000. SB 184 would force parents of trans minors, medical professionals, and others to choose between forgoing medically necessary procedures and treatments, or facing criminal prosecution.
The Justice Department’s complaint alleges that SB 184 violates the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the basis of sex and trans status.
LGBTQ legal rights advocates SPLC, GLAD, NCLR and HRC, joined by co-counsel King and Spalding LLP and Lightfoot, Franklin and White LLC, had previously filed a legal challenge in federal district court against Alabama SB 184.
Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the legal rights advocacy groups who had sued Alabama told the Washington Blade late Friday night:
“We are thrilled by this outcome, which will provide enormous relief to transgender children and their families. As the court recognizes, this is well established medical care that has been endorsed by 22 major medical associations. Thanks to this decision, kids in Alabama can now continue to receive this lifesaving care, and their doctors cannot be prosecuted simply for doing their jobs. This is a huge victory for compassion and common sense and a much needed antidote to the tidal wave of hostile legislation targeting these youth.”
In addition to the Justice Department, the doctors challenging SB 184 in Ladinsky v. Ivey are Dr. Morissa J. Ladinsky and Dr. Hussein D. Abdul-Latif, both providers at the Children’s Hospital of Alabama and members of the medical staff at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital and the teaching staff at UAB School of Medicine. Ladinsky and Abdul-Latif have long-term expertise in caring for trans children of Alabama families. Under SB 184, they both face criminal penalties including up to 10 years in prison if they continue to provide that support to their patients.
The Alabama family plaintiffs are proceeding anonymously to protect their children. They include Robert Roe, and his 13-year-old trans daughter Mary, of Jefferson County; and Jane Doe and her 17-year-old-trans son John, of Shelby County. These families have deep ties to Alabama. If SB 184 is allowed to go into effect both families will be forced to choose between leaving the state, breaking the law, or facing devastating consequences to their children’s health.
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U.S. Federal Courts
Judge temporarily blocks executive orders targeting LGBTQ, HIV groups
Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in federal court

A federal judge on Monday blocked the enforcement of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that would have threatened to defund nonprofit organizations providing health care and services for LGBTQ people and those living with HIV.
The preliminary injunction was awarded by Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in a case, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, filed by Lambda Legal and eight other organizations.
Implementation of the executive orders — two aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion along with one targeting the transgender community — will be halted pending the outcome of the litigation challenging them.
“This is a critical win — not only for the nine organizations we represent, but for LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV across the country,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project director and senior counsel on the case.
“The court blocked anti-equity and anti-LGBTQ executive orders that seek to erase transgender people from public life, dismantle DEI efforts, and silence nonprofits delivering life-saving services,” Abrigo said. “Today’s ruling acknowledges the immense harm these policies inflict on these organizations and the people they serve and stops Trump’s orders in their tracks.”
Tigar wrote, in his 52-page decision, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the constitution.”
“And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous,” he said.
Without the preliminary injunction, the judge wrote, “Plaintiffs face the imminent loss of federal funding critical to their ability to provide lifesaving healthcare and support services to marginalized LGBTQ populations,” a loss that “not only threatens the survival of critical programs but also forces plaintiffs to choose between their constitutional rights and their continued existence.”
The organizations in the lawsuit are located in California (San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Community Health Center), Arizona (Prisma Community Care), New York (The NYC LGBT Community Center), Pennsylvania (Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center), Maryland (Baltimore Safe Haven), and Wisconsin (FORGE).
U.S. Federal Courts
Judge blocks Trump’s order for prison officials to withhold gender affirming care
ACLU represents plaintiffs in the case

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order compelling officials with the Bureau of Prisons to stop providing gender-affirming hormone therapy and accommodations to transgender people.
News of the order by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Republican appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, was reported in a press release by the ACLU, which is representing plaintiffs in the litigation alongside the Transgender Law Center.
Pursuant to issuance of the executive order on Jan. 20, the the BOP announced that that “no Bureau of Prisons funds are to be expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” while also prohibiting clothing and commissary items the agency considers incongruous with a person’s birth sex, and requiring all BOP staff to misgender transgender people.
Two transgender men and one transgender woman, each diagnosed with gender dysphoria by prison officials and prescribed hormone therapy, were either informed that their treatment would soon be suspended or were cut off from their treatment. On behalf of America’s 2,000 or so transgender inmates, they filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration and BOP in March.
The ACLU noted that while Lamberth’s order did not address surgeries, it did grant the plaintiff’s motion for a class certification and extended injunctive relief to the full class, which encompasses all persons who are or will be incarcerated in BOP facilities and have a current medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who receive that diagnosis in the future,” per the press release.
“Today’s ruling is made possible by the courageous plaintiffs who fought to protect their rights and the rights of transgender people everywhere,” said Shawn Thomas Meerkamper, managing attorney at the Transgender Law Center. “This administration’s continued targeting of transgender people is cruel and threatens the lives of all people. No person—incarcerated or not, transgender or not—should have their rights to medically necessary care denied. We are grateful the court understood that our clients deserve basic dignity and healthcare, and we will continue to fight alongside them.”
“Today’s ruling is an important lifeline for trans people in federal custody,” said Michael Perloff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of D.C. “The ruling is also a critical reminder to the Trump administration that trans people, like all people, have constitutional rights that don’t simply disappear because the president has decided to wage an ideological battle.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Immigration judge dismisses Andry Hernández Romero’s asylum case
Gay makeup artist from Venezuela ‘forcibly removed’ to El Salvador in March

An immigration judge on Tuesday dismissed the asylum case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Andry Hernández Romero.
The Los Angeles-based organization in a press release notes Immigration Judge Paula Dixon in San Diego granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss Hernández’s case. A hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
Hernández asked for asylum because of persecution he said he suffered in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs. NBC News reported Hernández pursued his case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” Hernández is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force the U.S. to return those sent to El Salvador under the 18th century law.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center says officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos. Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly removed” from the U.S. remain at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month told gay U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that Hernández “is in El Salvador” and questions about his well-being “would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador.” Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), were unable to meet with Hernández last month when they traveled to the Central American country.
“DHS is doing everything it can to erase the fact that Andry came to the United States seeking asylum and he was denied due process as required by our Constitution,” said Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski on Thursday in the press release her organization released. “We should all be incredibly alarmed at what has happened in Andry’s case. The idea that the government can disappear you because of your tattoos, and never even give you a day in court, should send a chill down the spine of every American. If this can happen to Andry, it can happen to any one of us.”
Toczylowski said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center will appeal Dixon’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and other groups on June 6 plan to hold a rally for Hernández outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Protesters in Venezuela have also called for his release.
“Having tattoos does not make you a delinquent,” reads one of the banners that protesters held.