Arizona Clinic Joins Federal Lawsuit Against Trump

One of Arizona’s largest LGBTQ+ clinics, Prisma Community Care, has joined a lawsuit against three Trump-era executive orders that would strip federal funding from health providers serving LGBTQ+ people.

Prisma, formerly the Southwest Center for HIV and AIDS, is teaming up with eight other clinics from across the country to challenge these policies in California’s Northern District Court. The lawsuit argues that the executive orders strong-arm clinics into recognizing only binary genders assigned at birth and dismantling diversity programs.

Lambda Legal, the group representing the clinics, is calling out the orders as a blatant attempt to penalize organizations for "acknowledging the existence of transgender people, advocating for their rights, and adopting an equitable approach to the provision of their services that recognizes the rich diversity of the United States,” according to the lawsuit.

“These executive orders pose an existential threat to transgender people and the organizations that advocate for them and provide them shelter, community, and support,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project Director and lead attorney on the case. “This lawsuit is about challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to erase trans people from public life and ensuring these organizations can continue serving the communities that rely on them.”

Lawyers for Lambda Legal didn’t mince words in the lawsuit, saying that Trump’s actions are seeking to destroy the existence of a marginalized population. The lawsuit quoted The Stonewall Inn and The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, which made a statement after the administration forced the National Park Service to remove any mention of transgender or queer people from the monument: “This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals - especially transgender women of color - who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights.”

At the center of the case is Trump’s order on recognizing only two genders assigned at birth. The order directs federal contractors and grantees to ignore transgender identities. Also under scrutiny in the lawsuit are two executive orders that slash funding diversity initiatives and prohibit federal contractors from using diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility principles in their work.

The nine nonprofit organizations taking a stand include the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Community Health Center, The NYC LGBT Community Center, Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Baltimore Safe Haven in Maryland, and FORGE in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This lawsuit comes as federal agencies have started pulling funding from organizations that serve transgender people or work on equity-related issues. Some of these groups, including Prisma, have already hit bureaucratic roadblocks trying to access their usual federal support.

“The ongoing uncertainty around Prisma Community Care’s federal funding has put our operations, staff, and patient-centered care at significant risk,” said Jessyca Leach, CEO of Prisma Community Care. “Balancing evidence-based care with shifting federal mandates forces us into an untenable position that will harm the patients we are committed to serving and our community.”

The lawsuit, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, argues that these executive orders violate the First Amendment’s free speech protections, the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

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