A legal wall against Trump’s assault on trans rights

President Trump wasted no time before turning the right wing’s cherished assault on transgender rights into government policy.

- MICHAEL HILTZIK

PRESIDENT Trump, shown this month, labels "gender ideology" and "gender identity" as a "false claim."

CHIP SOMODEVILLA Getty Images

On the very day of his inauguration, he issued an executive order titled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

The order purported to “recognize two sexes, male and female,” as federal policy. “These sexes are not changeable,” it stated. It labeled “gender ideology” and “gender identity” as a “false claim.”

The order directed federal agencies to “remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.”

About a week later, Trump posted an order banning federal spending on gender-affirming therapies for children, which he defined as “mutilation” based on “junk science.”

Under Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, Trump’s Justice Department took action. On July 9, Bondi boasted of having sent “more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.”

In her news release, Bondi said the subpoenas targeted “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.”

That's when Trump's campaign ran into a judicial brick wall. In recent weeks at least three federal judges blocked some of these subpoenas as flagrantly illicit overreach.

At least two questioned the Justice Department's actions in these cases, with one warning that a federal official's inaccurate declaration could be interpreted as perjury. Another implied that a Justice Department filing in his courtroom might have reflected “deliberate misuse... of court procedure.” (I am indebted to Chris Geidner of Lawdork.com for pulling these facts together.)