United States: California sues Trump administration over transition treatment for transgender minors

California and about fifteen Democratic states announced Friday that they are suing the Trump administration, challenging its attempt to ban health professionals from providing transition treatments to transgender minors.

This issue is causing deep tension in the United States and is at the center of the country's culture wars. Donald Trump has made it a major campaign argument. Upon his return to the White House, the American president promised to put an end to the "transgender delusion" and notably signed an executive order equating these treatments with "mutilation" and ordering the Department of Justice to investigate clinics providing this care.

A “cruel and irresponsible” will

Under pressure, several such clinics across the country have closed or suspended services. “The President and his administration’s relentless attacks on gender-affirming care are endangering already vulnerable adolescents whose health and well-being are at stake,” charged California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement announcing the federal lawsuit. The government’s push to ban transition treatments is “cruel and irresponsible,” he added.

The lawsuit, supported by New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, among others, claims that the Justice Department's investigations "reflect an unconstitutional attempt to encroach on the states' power to regulate medicine." Several U.S. states, including California, legally guarantee access to transition treatments, whether hormonal or surgical.

Banned in half of US states

Many transgender experts, patients, and activists claim that these treatments can reduce stress, identity questions, and suicidal thoughts sometimes linked to gender dysphoria. But their growing use among minors has sparked a backlash in the United States: many worry that children may resort to them too early and come to regret their choices.

Half of the US states have banned transgender minors from accessing these treatments. In June, the conservative-majority Supreme Court ruled in their favor, ruling that Tennessee's ban does not constitute medical discrimination.

Of the 1.6 million people who identify as transgender in the United States, more than 300,000 are between the ages of 13 and 17, according to a study by the Williams Institute, a UCLA think tank.