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BALTIMORE, MD – A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction late Monday blocking the Trump administration from defunding teen reproductive and sexual health education programs over language that affirms all young peoples’ gender identities.
The ruling is the latest in a lawsuit filed by 16 states and the District of Columbia, including Maryland. The states sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in September alleging the administration was denying young people services for cruel and purely political reasons with no regard for the law.
“This ruling protects sexual health education programs that serve more than 1,400 Maryland youth every year – resources that are especially important in communities like Prince George’s County, recognized by the previous Trump administration as having one of the highest numbers of new HIV diagnoses in the country,” said Attorney General Brown. “These programs are a matter of life and death for young Marylanders, and we will continue our fight in court to protect the funding that keeps them safe and healthy.”
Maryland relies on nearly $950,000 in grant money under the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) to educate teenagers on healthy sexual behaviors to reduce pregnancy and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. The injunction ensures Maryland doesn’t have to modify its programs to comply with HHS’s unlawful directive, which would make its programs less reflective of Maryland youth’s lived experience, reducing engagement and community discourse around healthy sexual behaviors. With the injunction in place, Maryland can continue its successful programming that helps more than 1,400 Maryland youth every year.
HHS’s actions violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act as well as the United States Constitution. Congress created the grant programs with clear statutory requirements that are at direct odds with the Trump administration’s baseless insistence that gender is absolute, fixed, and binary, and that any reference to transgender status or gender identity must be erased altogether.
Forcing states to use medically unsupported, incomplete PREP program content violates laws adopted by Congress. The action is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. By unilaterally imposing these vague and nonsensical conditions, it also usurps Congress’ spending power and violates the separation of powers.
Joining Attorney General Brown in the lawsuit were the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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