A coalition of more than a dozen states, including Delaware, filed a lawsuit on Aug. 1 to block the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict access to medically necessary care for transgender youth. 

Filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the lawsuit challenges Executive Order 14187 from January, in which President Donald Trump refers to gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries as “mutilation.” It declares that the policy of the United States will be to “not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” 

The suit argues that the EO violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Tenth Amendment by asserting federal overreach into state-regulated medical and healthcare decisions. 

“It becomes clearer every day that there simply is no bottom to this administration’s cruelty,” said Attorney General Kathy Jennings in a press release. “With his agenda failing and his popularity plummeting, the president is turning to time-tested tactics of demagogues: turning vulnerable people into scapegoats, obsessing over their private lives, and intruding on medical decisions. These stunts make kids into political props and do nothing to help Americans. They are despicable, dangerous, and illegal.”  

Gov. Matt Meyer recently signed an executive order making Delaware a shield state for providers of gender-affirming care. It prohibits state agencies from cooperating with investigations, subpoenas, or legal actions by other states against individuals or providers involved in care that is legal in Delaware.

According to the press release, providers in some states have begun to reduce or eliminate services due to federal actions. Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware is no longer providing gender-affirming care to new patients. 

Medical experts and nearly every major national medical association endorses and supports the availability of gender-affirming care for transgender young people. 

“Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and nonbinary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression,” the American Medical Association said in 2021.

Plaintiffs include the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, and the governor of Pennsylvania. 

Intersex actor and advocate River Gallo will attend a screening of their film “Every Body,” followed by a Q&A in Wilmington, Del. this Saturday. 

River Gallo is a Salvadoran-American filmmaker, actor, writer, model, and intersex rights activist from New Jersey. They wrote, directed and starred in the 2024 film “Ponyboi,” the first film to feature an openly intersex actor playing an intersex person. Intersex refers to individuals who are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definitions of male or female. 

The movie that will be shown at Theatre N in Wilmington on July 26 at 4 p.m., “Every Body,” documents the lives of three intersex people, including Gallo. Following the film, Gallo will engage in a Q&A to discuss their life as the child of immigrant parents, activism, and film career. The event is hosted by Orgullo Delaware and the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective. ACLU Delaware and InterAct are partners in the event.

Noah Duckett co-founded Orgullo Delaware in 2019 with his mom, Julissa Coriano, to provide resources for Latino LGBTQ Delawareans and their families. 

Duckett said that a lot of times, intersex people are left out of conversations surrounding the LGBTQ community. He hopes to pack the house for this event and emphasize how special it is that Gallo will be there in-person to connect with the audience about their work. 

“I’m really hoping that people will be able to gain more of an understanding of what it must be like to navigate the world as an intersex person,” he said. 

Mike Brickner, executive director of the ACLU of Delaware, seconded that the intersex community typically does not get as much spotlight within the LGBTQ umbrella. 

“I hope that there are members of the intersex community that do come, that they also feel seen and acknowledged,” he said. “There’s often so few spaces for people to talk about that community and to really share about their experiences, so I do hope that visibility brings some level of comfort to folks.”

InterAct is an organization dedicated to the rights of intersex youth. It was initially founded with the goal of bringing legal action against the practice of non-consensual surgeries on intersex infants, according to Maddie Moran, the director of communications. 

Moran said intersex people have historically been victimized and targeted by the government, by medical institutions, and by legal institutions. They said the average politician can’t even define intersex. 

“Many of the average people in society don’t know that intersex people exist, and don’t understand that sex is not as strict as an XX and XY binary. It’s so much more than that,” they said. 

Moran said they came out publicly as intersex before working with InterAct, but suddenly didn’t feel so alone after joining. They said that visibility is more critical now than ever and Gallo is just one of the people stepping up to be that visibility in the intersex movement. 

“To intersex young people out there, you’re really not alone,” Moran said. “There are so many people who share your experiences, who share similar stories to yours, and regardless of what you’ve been told, there are many, many people out there like you.”

Brickner has come to the conclusion that the only way to get through the country’s current moment is through real and authentic solidarity. 

 “We have to acknowledge other people’s identities,” he said. “We have to have events like this that acculturate people to those identities, and that’s how we really create understanding and true, authentic solidarity with our broader community, is if people understand one another and see their lived experiences.”

Delaware LGBTQ advocates are organizing a counter-protest in response to a planned protest against a drag brunch in Rehoboth Beach on July 20.

Members of St. Ann’s Church in Bethany Beach announced plans to protest a Sunday drag brunch hosted at Goolee’s Grille, a gay-owned restaurant in Rehoboth Beach. In the church newsletter, they described the action as a “peaceful and Legal Rosary Rally in Protest and Reparation for Goolee’s Grille Rehoboth Beach hosting ‘Drag Brunch’ to normalize transgender and variants.”

The counter-protest will begin at 11:15 a.m. outside the restaurant and is organized by a coalition of local organizations including Sussex Pride, Indivisible Delaware, Speak Out Against Hate, CAMP Rehoboth, Rehoboth Beach Pride, and the Delaware Anti-Violence Project. 

“The rally is aimed at showcasing the overwhelming support for Goolee’s Grill, a beloved small business that has stood as a beacon of diversity and acceptance in the Rehoboth Beach community,” read a press release from Sussex Pride. 

The Rehoboth Beach Pride festival takes place the day before on July 19. 

“As we celebrate Rehoboth Beach Pride, all LGBTQ+ people, but particularly LGBTQ+ youth, should know that there are many faith communities here that love and accept us exactly as we are,” said David Mariner, executive director of Sussex Pride. “These members of St. Ann’s Church of Bethany do not speak for everyone.”

Goolee’s hosts drag brunches every third Sunday of the month. This week’s show is sold out, though the gift shop will be open. The restaurant opened in 2004 in Ocean City before moving to Rehoboth in 2014. 

“As a perpetual student of Jesus Christ, my faith has always taught me to love my neighbor, offer myself to the stranger, and reach out to those living on the fringe,” said Rev. Shelley D. McDade, Rector of the Parish of All Saints’ Church & St. George’s Chapel. “Thank you, Goolee’s, for continually serving up an authentic dish of love, acceptance and fun.”