Kristen Chapman is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration over its ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Chapman moved her family from Tennessee to Virginia to access care for her daughter.(Photo: John Partipilo)
Two transgender teens who relocated to other states after Tennessee banned gender-affirming care for minors have joined a legal challenge to the Trump Administration’s attempts to shut down access to such care nationwide.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in a Maryland federal court seeks to declare unconstitutional President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 order to end all federal research and education grants to institutions that provide gender affirming medical care to patients under 19 years of age.
Among the plaintiffs are former Tennessee resident Kristin Chapman and her 17-year-old daughter, identified in court filings as “W.G. ” The family moved to Virginia to continue gender-affirming care halted by Tennessee’s 2023 ban. Trump’s executive order meant that an appointment for W.G. for ongoing care in Virginia was abruptly cancelled last week, legal filings said.
U.S. Supreme Court will hear challenge to Tennessee’s ban on care for transgender minors
“I thought Virginia would be a safe place for me and my daughter. Instead, I am heartbroken, tired, and scared,” Chapman said in a statement.
Another former Tennessee resident, a teen identified as “Dylan Doe,” moved to Massachusetts with this family in 2021 because existing anti-transgender laws created a hostile environment, legal filings said.
An appointment for Dylan’s gender-affirming care was cancelled Jan. 30 due to Trump’s executive order, the lawsuit said.
“Access to health care makes Dylan’s life livable,” the lawsuit said. “When he thinks about losing it, he becomes too depressed to function.”
Other plaintiffs include PFLAG, the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights and teens and their families living in New York and Massachusetts. They are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and law firms Hogan Lovells and Jennifer & Bock.
The lawsuit alleges Trump’s order discriminates on the basis of sex and disability, and exceeds the president’s authority.
How to stay or when to move? Transgender laws force tough choices on Tennessee families
“These Executive Orders are unlawful and unconstitutional,” the lawsuit said.
“The President does not have unilateral power to withhold federal funds that have been previously authorized by Congress and signed into law, and the President does not have the power to impose his own conditions on the use of funds when Congress has not delegated to him the power to do so,” it said.
The lawsuit was filed a little more than one month after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming hormone therapies for transgender youth. The court has not yet ruled in that case.
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