Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has vowed to protect access to gender-affirming care, a week after President Donald Trump issued an executive order threatening to cut federal funding for hospitals that provide such care.
In a statement released Wednesday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a coalition of 14 other attorneys general, said institutions offering gender-affirming care would continue to receive federal dollars, regardless of executive order, and threatened legal action if the administration made further moves to restrict funds.
“State attorneys general will continue to enforce state laws that provide access to gender-affirming care, in states where such enforcement authority exists, and we will challenge any unlawful effort by the Trump administration to restrict access to it in our jurisdictions,” the statement said.
The Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits health care providers from discriminating on the basis of sex, which specifically includes gender identity, Raoul wrote in the statement.
In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker also signed into law a measure that further protects access to gender-affirming care and reproductive healthcare in Illinois.
A White House executive order, issued last week, threatened to cut federal funding for providers offering gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19.
On Friday, a federal judge issued Raoul and other attorneys general a “critical win,” by blocking the Trump administration from imposing a blanket freeze on federal funding.
“This (ruling) means that federal funding to institutions that provide gender-affirming care continues to be available, irrespective of President Trump’s recent executive order,” the coalition of attorneys general wrote Wednesday. “If the federal administration takes additional action to impede this critical funding, we will not hesitate to take further legal action.”
In the executive order, the Trump administration refers to healthcare providers “maiming and sterilizing” young children, which the attorneys general strongly pushed back against.
“The Trump administration’s recent executive order is wrong on the science and the law,” their statement said. “Despite what the Trump administration has suggested, there is no connection between female genital mutilation and gender-affirming care, and no federal law makes gender-affirming care unlawful. President Trump cannot change that by Executive Order.”
Wednesday’s statement was issued by Raoul and the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.