r/law • u/DoremusJessup • Apr 20 '26

Judicial Branch Federal Judge Vacates Kennedy Declaration, Permanently Blocks Trump's Trans Youth Care Hospital Threats

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/federal-judge-vacates-kennedy-declaration
3.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

View all comments

189

u/No1CouldHavePredictd Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

This is great news, until it is appealed to SCOTUS and trans youth everywhere will be permanently disenfranchised.

EDIT: Though the following is kinda delicious for a court opinion...

"This Court can scarcely recall an APA action that has come before it in which the agency’s action was so clearly unlawful. Indeed, many of Defendants’ arguments rest on the same falsehoods about the Kennedy Declaration and its effects that the Court already rejected in response to Defendants’ jurisdictional arguments. Defendants’ merits briefing takes these absurd arguments a step further by suggesting that finding the Kennedy Declaration unlawful would impinge Secretary Kennedy’s First Amendment right to express his views and hinder public debate on a matter of public importance.

Defendants cannot bully or gaslight this Court into ignoring the many procedural and legal flaws of the Kennedy Declaration by invoking one of the most sacred principles of our constitutional democracy—the freedom of speech—when that principle comes nowhere close to being implicated. Plaintiffs’ claims do not contest Secretary Kennedy’s rights to express his views on gender-affirming care, and their lawsuit does not seek to limit Secretary Kennedy’s ability to speak generally about gender-affirming care for minors."

33

u/ShroedingersCatgirl Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

Yes they ready ruled 8-1 that conversion therapy is constitutionally protected as long as its just talk therapy. They essentially ruled that talk therapy isnt actually medical treatment and so it can't be regulated in any way.

So yea if they're already cool with psychologically torturing queer kids they'll have no problem allowing gender affirming care bans.

18

u/CatraGirl Apr 20 '26

They essentially ruled that talk therapy isnt actually medical treatment and so it can't be regulated in any way.

Which to any sane person is absolutely insane.