Josh Shapiro joins lawsuit against Trump admin over orders that ‘targeted’ transgender individuals
The Pa. governor is the only individual named in the lawsuit filed by 15 states and Washington, D.C.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined 15 states and Washington, D.C., in a lawsuit against Trump administration efforts to eliminate gender-affirming healthcare for transgender individuals under age 19.
The suit, filed last Friday in federal court in Boston, also castigates the administration for “intimidating” medical providers for providing such care.
Since January, the administration “relentlessly, cruelly, and unlawfully targeted transgender individuals,” the lawsuit reads.
“The result is an atmosphere of fear and intimidation experienced by transgender individuals, their families and caregivers, and the medical professionals who seek only to provide necessary, lawful care to their patients.”
In a statement after the filing, Shapiro called out the administration for “threatening baseless civil investigations and criminal prosecutions against healthcare providers in Pennsylvania.”
Shapiro’s involvement is conspicuous because he’s the only named individual on the plaintiff’s list, the rest of which are states and the District of Columbia. The first-term governor has built a significant national profile boosted last year when former Vice President Kamala Harris included him in her short list of potential running mates. Since the election, he has stayed in the public eye as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential nominee.
Not that long ago, Shapiro had been criticized by the state’s LGBTQ community for saying little about federal limits to gender-affirming healthcare, especially after Penn Medicine and other Pennsylvania healthcare systems announced they would no longer provide gender-affirming surgery to patients under 19 earlier this year.
“If Shapiro has any presidential ambitions, he better start speaking up,” Kyle McIntyre, the organizer of Delco Pride, said in June, urging him to “fight” for the community.
Asked for comment Wednesday on Shapiro’s participation in the lawsuit, Darius McLean, acting executive director of the William Way LGBTQ Community Center in Center City, couldn’t be reached.
The suit, and Shapiro’s role in it, prompted an angry response from the Pennsylvania State Republican Campaign Committee, whose executive director, Cody Harbaugh, said in a statement Tuesday that Shapiro’s “latest attempt to ingratiate himself with the Democrats’ radical base puts the health of children at risk.”
The lawsuit is a reaction to several moves made by the Trump administration regarding transgender individuals.
A White House spokesperson said Wednesday in response to a request for comment on the lawsuit that President Donald Trump has taken “decisive action to stop the despicable mutilation and chemical castration of children.”
In January, Trump signed an executive order announcing that the United States would no longer fund or support “the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”
Denigrating such activity as a “stain on our Nation’s history,” the order accused medical personnel of “maiming and sterilizing... impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.”
In May, Mehmet Oz, former TV personality and currently the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, wrote a letter to nine hospitals —including one in Philadelphia, according to the New York Times — saying transgender interventions are being performed with an “underdeveloped body of evidence.”
The letter demanded “gender transition financial reviews,” requiring the hospitals to provide the federal government copies of their bills for “pediatric sex trait modifications.” All nine hospitals appear on the so-called Dirty Dozen list, the Times reported, which represents the 12 “worst-offending children’s hospitals promoting sex change treatments for minors” as determined by Stop the Harm Database, run by a conservative group of “concerned citizens.”
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is on the list. A call to CHOP Wednesday to ask whether the hospital was a recipient of Oz’s letter was not returned.
In July, the Trump administration continued its pressure as the Justice Department issued subpoenas for patient information from nearly two dozen doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatments to minors, the Times reported.
Also last month, Shapiro made his first public statements about a bill in the Pennsylvania legislature that would prohibit transgender students from participating in girls’ sports:
“What we do not need in Pennsylvania are politicians — extremist politicians like Donald Trump, [Republican State Sen.] Doug Mastriano, and these others — trying to legislate a student’s participation the way they’ve tried to do on many other things, like on abortion rights or marriage equality.”
The state Senate, controlled by Republicans, passed the bill, but it’s stalled in the House, where Democrats hold the majority..
Overall, 56% of Americans favor or strongly favor laws and policies that ban healthcare professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors, according to a February survey by the Pew Research Center.