Overview
- U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken issued a preliminary injunction on Oct. 27 stopping HHS from conditioning PREP and Title V SRAE funds on the removal of gender-identity content.
- The 77-page ruling says HHS exceeded its statutory authority and that the new conditions amount to unlawful sex discrimination, calling the government’s rationale “absurd.”
- A coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia brought the challenge after HHS warned funding could be cut by Oct. 27, with plaintiffs citing about $35 million at risk.
- Justice Department lawyers argued the policy ensured “medically accurate” curricula free of ideology, but the judge noted no medical accuracy review was done and wrote that excluding transgender people is not medically accurate.
- Reporting shows at least 11 states and two territories agreed to strip gender-identity references, and California previously lost its PREP grant for refusing; the administration is expected to seek appellate review.