(The Center Square) − On Monday, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill joined 24 other Republican attorneys general in backing former President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at halting federal funding for sex change procedures on minors, marking the state’s latest push in a broader legal fight over transgender care.
Murrill could not be reached for comment.
The attorneys general, led by Alabama’s Steve Marshall, filed amicus briefs in the 4th and 9th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, supporting Trump’s order and urging the courts to overturn preliminary injunctions issued earlier this year in lawsuits out of Washington and Maryland.
Those lawsuits, brought by the state of Washington and plaintiffs represented by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, challenge the constitutionality of defunding “gender-affirming” care for youth.
The briefs argue that continuing to fund such procedures violates both medical ethics and constitutional principles.
“Even though President Trump is in office, common sense and constitutional principles are under constant assault by radical leftist groups like the ACLU,” said Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who is leading the coalition. Marshall accused the ACLU of pushing courts to “force taxpayers to fund sex-change procedures on children.”
Murrill, who has been an outspoken critic of so-called “gender-affirming” care for minors, did not release a separate public statement, but her participation in the brief underscores Louisiana’s alignment with a growing number of Republican-led states that seek to limit access to such treatments.
In recent years, Louisiana’s Legislature has passed bans on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors, and the state is currently defending those laws in court.
According to the coalition’s legal filings, the brief draws on findings from Alabama’s discovery in a now-dismissed challenge to its own ban on “gender-affirming” care, where Marshall’s office claimed to uncover a coordinated effort to remove age restrictions from national medical guidelines — a move he described as politically motivated rather than science-based.
The legal team argues that federal funding for “gender-affirming” care is based on “discredited standards” and that such medical interventions for minors have irreversible consequences. “The evidence says otherwise,” Marshall said. “These harmful interventions have lasting consequences for vulnerable children.”
The brief was filed in both Doe v. Becerra (9th Circuit) and Washington v. HHS (4th Circuit), and was joined by attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming in addition to Louisiana.
The filings are part of a broader conservative legal strategy seeking to bolster state laws banning so-called “gender-affirming” care while reinforcing Trump-era federal policy that frames such care as medically unnecessary and ideologically driven.
