December 24, 2025
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Pennsylvania and New Jersey joined a 19-state lawsuit challenging rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., above, that would cut funding to hospitals providing gender-affirming care to minors.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey have joined the multi-state lawsuit against the federal government over proposed rules that would restrict gender-affirming care to young people.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday by 19 states and the District of Columbia is a response to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' plan announced Thursday that would cut federal funding – including Medicare and Medicaid – to hospitals that provide puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to children and adolescents.
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“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who spearheaded the lawsuit, said a press release. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices."
Last week's proposed changes are the latest step in efforts by the federal government to curtail gender-affirming care to youth and follow an executive order in January for HHS "to take all appropriate actions to end" such treatment.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oregon, list the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and its inspector general as defendants. It argues that the HHS declaration "exceeds" Kennedy's authority, that HHS "is unlawfully interfering" in patient-provider relationships and that HHS cannot "circumvent" basic legal requirements for policy changes. It calls for the court to block the proposed new rules.
HHS declined a request from the Associated Press to comment on the lawsuit.
Earlier this year, Penn Medicine stopped offering gender-affirming care to people yonget than 19. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia – which has one of the leading programs in the country offering medical support for gender-nonconforming and transgender youth – has been embroiled in a court battle with the Trump administration over medical records of patients who receive its services.
CHOP, Jefferson Health and Main Line Health did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday's HHS declaration. Temple Health and Cooper University Health Care declined to comment.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other major medical organizations support access to gender-affirming care for minors, although more than half of states have laws or policies that limit access to these services.
