Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today recognized Pride Month and highlighted his office’s continued work to defend the rights of all LGBTQ+ Illinoisans against unlawful attacks by the federal government.

“As we mark Pride Month, I want to be clear that in Illinois, we protect all individuals’ rights to live as their authentic selves and be free from discrimination each day, no matter who they are or who they love,” Raoul said. “The Trump administration has relentlessly targeted LGBTQ+ individuals by attempting to end lawful medical care, cut off federal funds to programs and services that support vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth, and force states to discriminate against their own residents. I will continue to fight back against illegal federal actions that infringe upon individuals’ rights and undermine our state’s laws and values that support the LGBTQ+ community and do nothing to improve the lives of everyday Americans.”

Despite there being no federal law prohibiting the provision of or access to healthcare for transgender youth, the Trump administration has launched a multi-pronged attack on lawful healthcare, targeting hospitals and those who provide or receive transgender youth healthcare. Raoul has stepped up to challenge the administration’s actions on all fronts.

In August 2025, Raoul co-led a lawsuit to block unlawful attacks on medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth where the Trump administration has used threats of criminal prosecution and federal investigations to pressure healthcare providers into stopping care. After filing a lawsuit in December 2025, Raoul and a coalition of 22 states secured a federal court order blocking an unlawful attempt by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to exclude healthcare providers from Medicare and Medicaid programs simply for providing care to transgender adolescents that is medically necessary, safe, effective and legal in Illinois.

The Trump administration has targeted individual practitioners and hospitals with administrative and criminal grand jury subpoenas that seek sensitive, private healthcare and personnel records related to healthcare for transgender youth. In response, Raoul and a coalition of attorneys general have filed briefs in court cases seeking to protect this confidential information at hospitals across the country.

HHS and the Centers for Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed two rules to withhold Medicare and Medicaid funds from hospitals and medical providers that provide essential transgender youth healthcare. Raoul led a coalition of 20 attorneys general in submitting comment letters arguing that the rules exceed the administration’s authority because no federal agency has the power to directly regulate healthcare – a power that Congress has long reserved for the states.

The Trump administration has also attempted to use the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to intimidate healthcare providers. After the FTC attempted to single out providers of healthcare for transgender youth, Raoul co-led a coalition of 18 attorneys general in sending a comment letter explaining that federal law does not give the FTC authority to regulate the practice of medicine or to interfere in the private relationship between patients and their healthcare providers. Raoul also co-led a coalition of attorneys general in supporting lawsuits challenging the FTC’s use of its civil investigative powers to further the administration’s anti-transgender agenda, rather than ensure wide availability of safe healthcare.

In addition, Raoul has taken action to stop the administration from holding critical public funding hostage. In January, Raoul joined a coalition of 12 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against HHS for unlawfully conditioning hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding on states’ agreement to discriminate against transgender people. Raoul’s lawsuit followed the issuance of a new HHS policy that required recipients of federal health, education and research funding to certify compliance with a presidential executive order that seeks to deny the existence of transgender people and impose rigid, unscientific definitions of sex. More than $1.5 billion in funding Illinois receives for, among other things, training for personnel and treatment and prevention programs was targeted by the unlawful policy.

In February, Raoul led attorneys general from California, Colorado and Minnesota in suing the Trump administration over the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) directive to unlawfully cut more than $100 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grants that had been lawfully allocated by Congress. Illinois uses this critical funding to support programs that evaluate the effectiveness of HIV care programs, track the spread of HIV, and respond to HIV outbreaks. Raoul and the coalition were successful in securing a preliminary injunction from the district court that blocks the unlawful termination of these grants.

Raoul also filed a lawsuit against HHS in September 2025 challenging unlawful conditions the Trump administration attempted to apply to longstanding reproductive and sexual health education programs for youth. The Trump administration threatened to pull funding, including $1.5 million allocated to Illinois, for these programs if the educational materials include language affirming young people’s gender identity. The states were successful in obtaining a preliminary injunction from the district court blocking the termination of this funding.

Raoul has taken other steps to protect transgender students. In September 2025, Raoul co-led a multistate coalition in opposing proposed changes to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) Civil Rights Data Collection. The changes erased nonbinary students from federal civil rights data collection, removed “gender identity” and “sex characteristics” from the definitions of harassment and bullying on the basis of sex, halted collection of data on harassment and bullying on the basis of gender identity, and removed “harassment on the basis of actual or perceived sex” from the definitions of “rape” and “sexual assault.” The OCR’s Civil Rights Data Collection is the largest and, in some instances, the only source of nationwide publicly available civil rights education data.

Attorney General Raoul has taken several actions to show that unlawful discrimination and harassment have no place in America. After President Trump issued an executive order one week after taking office banning transgender individuals from military service, Raoul joined multiple amicus briefs supporting transgender troops. Raoul has also joined in defending individuals’ rights to travel with appropriate and accurate identification documents. Specifically, in March 2025, Raoul joined a coalition submitting comments to the U.S. Department of State opposing changes to the passport application process that would prevent transgender and nonbinary individuals from obtaining a passport that matches their gender identity, resulting in passports that often do not reflect their state issued identification documents.

All of these actions are a continuation of Raoul’s longstanding advocacy for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, including calling on the Federal Drug Administration to end its discriminatory blood donation policies, standing up for access to inclusive healthcare and supporting the rights of LGBTQ+ students in Illinois and across the country.