Federal Judge Calls RFK Jr. an “Unsafe” Leader in Order Protecting Trans Youth Health Care |
In a scathing ruling describing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an “unserious” and “unsafe” 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 on gender-affirming care.
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. “Unserious leaders are unsafe,” Kasubhai wrote in his ruling, adding that Kennedy’s actions “caused chaos and terror for all those people and institutions of our great nation.”
The case began last December, when Kennedy issued a declaration falsely claiming that gender-affirming medical treatments for trans youth “fail to meet professional recognized standards of health care.” In reality, such treatments—including puberty blockers for kids entering adolescence and cross-sex hormones for older teens—are considered necessary for some patients under mainstream medical guidelines, and they’re supported by virtually the entire medical establishment. (And it’s worth noting that the treatments are actually quite rare, despite the amount of political attention paid to them.) Kennedy dubbed the treatments “sex-rejecting procedures” and claimed the right to pull all federal funding from any hospital, clinic, or........