A federal court has blocked portions of President Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to deny congressionally-approved funding to pro-LGBTQ+ organizations and health centers that pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and so-called “gender ideology,” transgender journalist Erin Reed reported. Though the ruling only applies to the plaintiffs, it still marks one of many court victories that could help dismantle Trump’s anti-DEI agenda.

In his 52-page Monday ruling, federal Judge Jon S. Tigar (an appointee of former President Barack Obama) wrote that the Gender Termination Provision and Gender Promotion Provision that appear in three of Trump’s executive orders violate the Constitution by trying to censor free speech and due process. Tigar said the provisions are “transparently motivated by a ‘bare desire to harm’ transgender people.”

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The plaintiffs in the case — which include The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the GLBT Historical Society, the San Francisco Community Health Center, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Prisma Health, the New York LGBT Center, Bradbury-Sullivan, Baltimore Secular Humanists, and FORGE (a trans/non-binary trauma recovery group) — recieve tens of millions in federal funding to provide critical and lifesaving services to marginalized queer communities.

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During the trial, the plaintiffs noted that they could risk losing federal funding if they merely used pronouns to acknowledge the existence of trans people.

In his decision, Tigar wrote that the Trump administration is “still bound by the Constitution” and “cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities” through “vague” orders that seek to “single out protected communities for disfavored treatment” and “suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous.”

“These three funding provisions reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and recognizing the existence of transgender individuals,” Judge Tigar wrote in his ruling. “Plaintiffs have therefore demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits that these provisions violate their rights under the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment [Due Process clause], and the Separation of Powers.”

The Separation of Powers clause refers to Constitutional articles outlining Congress’ power to make laws (including the allocation of the federal budget) and the president’s inability to independently change these laws (in this case, to deny federal funding to groups already allocated by Congress).

Tigar wrote that the plaintiffs didn’t prove that they would be materially harmed by other provisions, including the List Provision and Enforcement Threat Provision of Trump’s orders, which direct the Attorney General to make a yet-to-be-compiled list of federally funded organizations pursuing DEI initiatives.

Tigar also found that the plaintiffs lacked the legal standing to oppose Trump’s Intimate Spaces Provision, DEIA Principles Provision, and Diversity Termination Provision which require sex-segregated spaces to separate people by sex rather than gender and also order federal agencies to deny funding to groups that use DEI in their principles or hiring practices.

In April, three federal judges separately ruled against the Trump administration’s threats to cut federal funding for schools with DEI programs. In February, Lambda Legal and the NAACP began assisting the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago with their lawsuit against Trump’s anti-DEI orders.

While these lawsuits have continued to examine the constitutional (il)legality of Trump’s orders, courts have largely ruled against his anti-DEI directives as violations of free speech.

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