On June 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that threatened to defund vital health and support services for the LGBTQ+ community, including those living with or at risk of HIV, per a Lambda Legal release.
The injunction granted in Lambda Legal’s lawsuit San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump prevents the Trump administration from defunding the nine organizations represented in the lawsuit as the case proceeds. In addition, the order holds that the plaintiffs will probably succeed in showing that various provisions of two anti-DEI executive orders and an anti-transgender executive order are unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs include California’s San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society and San Francisco Community Health Center; Arizona’s Prisma Community Care; New York’s The NYC LGBT Community Center; Pennsylvania’s Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center; Maryland’s Baltimore Safe Haven; and Wisconsin’s FORGE.
U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar wrote, in part, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the Constitution…. And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous.”
Jose Abrigo—Lambda Legal’s HIV project director and the senior attorney on the case—commented, “The Court blocked anti-equity and anti-LGBTQ executive orders that seek to erase transgender people from public life, dismantle DEI efforts, and silence nonprofits delivering life-saving services. [The] ruling acknowledges the immense harm these policies inflict on these organizations and the people they serve and stops Trump’s orders in their tracks.”
