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A federal judge in Oregon appointed by Joe Biden has decided that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overstepped his authority when he declared that so-called “sex-rejecting procedures” on children are neither safe nor effective. Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, who Biden placed on the bench in 2023, ruled that Kennedy failed to follow proper administrative procedures and granted preliminary relief to medical providers who perform these controversial treatments on minors.
The ruling blocks the federal government from enforcing Kennedy’s declaration against hospitals and health professionals who prescribe puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures for children experiencing gender dysphoria. Twenty blue states and Washington, D.C. brought the lawsuit, arguing that Kennedy’s position unlawfully attempted to override established medical standards without public notice or comment. The judge agreed, accusing the administration of using what he called a “break it and see” approach to governance.
What makes this ruling particularly galling is the judge’s sanctimonious lecture about the rule of law while ignoring the substance of what Kennedy actually said. The Health Secretary based his declaration on comprehensive evidence review, citing documented risks of significant harm, weak evidence of benefit, unfavorable risk-benefit profiles, and growing international consensus among countries that have conducted rigorous evidence reviews. Nations like Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom have all pulled back from pediatric gender transition procedures after examining the same evidence Kennedy cited. Are we supposed to believe that Oregon and New York know better than the medical establishments of Europe?
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the case against the Trump administration, celebrated the ruling as a victory for patients and families. She accused the federal government of attacking transgender healthcare and claimed that young people are losing access to “life-saving treatment.” The rhetoric is familiar, emotionally charged, and deliberately obscures the reality of what these procedures actually entail. We’re talking about double mastectomies on teenage girls, irreversible hormone treatments that compromise fertility, and medical interventions that most children would never be eligible to consent to for any other purpose.
Judge Kasubhai’s ruling prevents the government from even expressing its position that these procedures fail to meet professionally recognized standards of care. Think about what that means. An administration elected by the American people cannot state its medical and ethical conclusions about controversial treatments being performed on children, because a single unelected judge in Oregon has decided that doing so might intimidate the doctors performing them. When did the First Amendment become optional for federal officials discussing matters of public health?
The case highlights a deeper conflict that extends beyond any single policy dispute. Progressive state attorneys general have discovered that they can use friendly federal courts to block virtually any action taken by a conservative administration, no matter how well-supported by evidence or public opinion. The forum shopping is blatant, the judicial reasoning is often strained, and the practical effect is to place vast swaths of federal policy under the veto power of individual district judges. This is not how a constitutional republic is supposed to function.
Kennedy’s declaration was never binding regulation, it was a statement of policy position based on medical literature review. The idea that such a declaration requires months of administrative procedure before the Secretary of Health can utter it is absurd on its face. Yet Judge Kasubhai has effectively created a new requirement that conservative administrations must navigate an endless thicket of procedural obstacles before taking positions that progressive jurisdictions find objectionable. The asymmetry is obvious and intentional.
What we’re witnessing is the continuation of a pattern that has defined the judicial resistance to the Trump administration from day one. Progressive activists file lawsuits in favorable venues, secure injunctions from sympathetic judges, and drag out the legal process until the underlying policy becomes practically impossible to implement. The merits of the policy matter less than the identity of the judge hearing the case. In this environment, the rule of law becomes indistinguishable from raw political power exercised through judicial robes.
The families affected by this ruling deserve better than to be pawns in a ideological chess match. Children struggling with gender dysphoria need compassionate care grounded in sound medical evidence, not experimental treatments pushed by activists and protected by judicial fiat. Kennedy’s declaration represented an attempt to bring that evidence to bear on federal health policy. Judge Kasubhai’s ruling ensures that the evidence will be suppressed and the experiments will continue.
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