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Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call\/ZUMA Press<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n In a scathing ruling<\/a> describing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an \u201cunserious\u201d and \u201cunsafe\u201d leader, a federal judge in Oregon issued an order that will protect doctors and hospitals, and the transgender kids they treat, from the federal crackdown<\/a> on gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n On Saturday, US District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai ruled that Kennedy was acting illegally when he attempted last December to unilaterially cut off federal funding for healthcare providers treating kids with gender dysphoria. \u201cUnserious leaders are unsafe,\u201d Kasubhai wrote in his ruling, adding that Kennedy\u2019s actions \u201ccaused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation.\u201d<\/p>\n The case began last December, when Kennedy issued a declaration<\/a> falsely claiming that gender-affirming medical treatments for trans youth \u201cfail to meet professional recognized standards of health care.\u201d In reality, such treatments\u2014including puberty blockers for kids entering adolescence and cross-sex hormones for older teens\u2014are considered necessary for some patients under mainstream medical<\/a> guidelines<\/a>, and they\u2019re supported by virtually the entire medical establishment<\/a>. (And it\u2019s worth noting that the treatments are actually quite rare<\/a>, despite the amount of political attention paid to them.) Kennedy dubbed the treatments \u201csex-rejecting procedures\u201d and claimed the right to pull all federal funding from any hospital, clinic, or doctor, found to be providing them. Soon, his department had referred over a dozen children\u2019s hospitals for potential defunding, and hospitals hoping to avoid the federal crackdown began preemptively cutting off treatments for kids with gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n \u201cI will go forward and issue a declaration and see if we can get away with it\u2019 is not a principle of governance that adheres to the overarching commitment to a democratic republic.\u201d<\/p>\n A coalition of 21 mostly Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, immedialy sued<\/a>, arguing Kennedy had skipped the legally required procedures for such a drastic policy change. Last month, Kasubhai agreed that Kennedy had overstepped his authority and issued an order temporarily blocking the declaration. \u201cThe notion that \u2018I will go forward and issue a declaration and see if we can get away with it\u2019 is not a principle of governance that adheres to the overarching commitment to a democratic republic that requires the rule of law to be regarded and respected and honored as sacred,\u201d the judge said<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n