PFLAG, Inc. v. Donald Trump

Immediately after retaking office, President Trump signed two executive orders targeting the provision of gender-affirming care for transgender people, including by directing agencies to withhold all federal medical and research grant funding from any hospital or institution that provides gender-affirming care to people under nineteen. PFLAG and the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights, along with several individual plaintiffs, sued to prevent the implementation of the funding provisions of the executive orders.

The district court granted a temporary restraining order followed by a preliminary injunction, barring the implementation of the funding provisions nationwide. On the appeal, the government argued, among other things, that the district court’s relief was too broad. Relying on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. CASA (2025), which restricted the use of so-called “universal” injunctions, the government argued that only the individual plaintiffs and members of the plaintiff organizations who directly participated in the litigation were entitled to relief.

Public Citizen, together with the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, filed an amicus brief supporting affirmance of the district court’s order. The brief argues that a district court’s power to award relief to all injured members of membership association is well established in Supreme Court precedent and is well supported by the kind of historical evidence that the Supreme Court looked to in its CASA decision.