Equality California on Federal Court Ruling Striking Down ‘Kennedy Declaration’ Targeting Transgender Health Care

WASHINGTON- Equality California, the nation's largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, released the following statement from Executive Director Tony Hoang in response to a federal court ruling granting summary judgment, vacating the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' so-called "Kennedy Declaration," and blocking its enforcement:

"'Unserious leaders are unsafe,' a federal judge wrote in today's decision striking down a Trump Administration policy targeting transgender youth.

Equality California applauds this federal court decision, invalidating a dangerous and unlawful policy from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which sought to restrict access to medically necessary health care for transgender youth.

In a sweeping and sharply worded rebuke, the court made clear that the administration's actions were unlawful and dangerous. As the court wrote, this case reflects a 'leader's unserious regard for the rule of law' and demonstrates how such disregard 'causes very real harm to very real people.'

The court found that Secretary Kennedy acted without legal authority when he threatened to exclude providers offering transgender health care from Medicare and Medicaid - an extraordinary abuse of power. The court found that this unlawful action had swift and devastating consequences, noting that the threat of enforcement 'caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation,' and that 'Secretary Kennedy's unlawful declaration harmed children.'

This ruling confirms what we have said all along: the federal government cannot ignore the law to push a political agenda at the expense of people's lives. Secretary Kennedy's actions weren't just illegal - they put transgender young people and their families in harm's way by threatening access to medically necessary, evidence-based healthcare.

We are grateful to Attorney General Rob Bonta for taking swift action to protect transgender youth and their families. Equality California will never stop fighting to ensure that every LGBTQ+ person can access the care they need without fear or unlawful government overreach."

The Kennedy Declaration asserted that medically necessary health care for transgender youth fails to meet professionally recognized standards of care and threatened that providers offering this care could be excluded from federal health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Today's decision builds directly on an earlier ruling secured by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. By granting summary judgment, the court formally invalidates the Kennedy Declaration and prevents the federal government from enforcing it.

###