Anonymous
8/5/2025, 7:26:35 PM No.40616645
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/suing-trump-isnt-enough-blue-state
>In recent months, President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders, investigatory threats, and funding cuts targeting any institution with inclusive policies for transgender people. These actions are part of a broader campaign to pressure organizations and companies into aligning with the administration’s anti-transgender agenda. Faced with these threats, a growing number of institutions—including private colleges, hospitals, and other essential services—are choosing to comply rather than fight for their transgender students, patients, and constituents. If this trend continues, compliance through cowardice will become the primary vehicle for rolling back transgender rights not just in red states, but nationwide. State attorneys general must act now to enforce state-level nondiscrimination laws—or risk letting federal intimidation dictate policy even in places where protections still exist.
>We’ve already seen plenty of over-compliance. One executive order threatens to wield the federal female-genital-mutilation statute against gender-affirming health care—even though that law clearly does not apply to medical procedures. Another menace: yanking Medicaid dollars from hospitals that treat transgender patients. Trump cannot do this unilaterally; any such move would trigger litigation the hospitals would almost certainly win. But lawsuits are expensive, so many systems decide they’d rather cave than spend money defending their patients’ rights. That compliance carries a steep cost: hospitals have far greater resources than individual trans people and are better positioned to win precedent-setting cases affecting large numbers of patients. When they refuse to fight, the burden—and the harm—falls on those with the least power.
>In recent months, President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders, investigatory threats, and funding cuts targeting any institution with inclusive policies for transgender people. These actions are part of a broader campaign to pressure organizations and companies into aligning with the administration’s anti-transgender agenda. Faced with these threats, a growing number of institutions—including private colleges, hospitals, and other essential services—are choosing to comply rather than fight for their transgender students, patients, and constituents. If this trend continues, compliance through cowardice will become the primary vehicle for rolling back transgender rights not just in red states, but nationwide. State attorneys general must act now to enforce state-level nondiscrimination laws—or risk letting federal intimidation dictate policy even in places where protections still exist.
>We’ve already seen plenty of over-compliance. One executive order threatens to wield the federal female-genital-mutilation statute against gender-affirming health care—even though that law clearly does not apply to medical procedures. Another menace: yanking Medicaid dollars from hospitals that treat transgender patients. Trump cannot do this unilaterally; any such move would trigger litigation the hospitals would almost certainly win. But lawsuits are expensive, so many systems decide they’d rather cave than spend money defending their patients’ rights. That compliance carries a steep cost: hospitals have far greater resources than individual trans people and are better positioned to win precedent-setting cases affecting large numbers of patients. When they refuse to fight, the burden—and the harm—falls on those with the least power.
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