A federal judge has ordered President Trump to restore government web pages that were taken down in the president's purge of gender ideology.
The ruling from Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, is the latest example of courts micromanaging the White House to block Trump's "common sense" agenda.
Bates commanded the White House to bring back public web pages that were taken down after Trump signed an executive order declaring there are only two sexes. A left-wing nonprofit, Doctors for America, sued over Trump's changes, while condemning his executive order as "medically inaccurate" and rooted in "transphobia."
Doctors for America champions "access to affordable care, community health and prevention, and health justice and equity." The advocacy group supported Barack Obama when he was running for president.
Consistent with Trump's executive order on gender ideology, the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) ordered all federal agencies to remove references to gender ideology from their public-facing websites. Health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed certain web pages to comply with Trump's directive.
Some of the deleted information covered topics like HIV prevention and the mental health of high school students, particularly young people with gender dysphoria. Doctors for America sued, arguing the administration arbitrarily deprived doctors and researchers of critical health information in violation of federal laws.
The organization submitted declarations from two doctors who said they relied on CDC data to treat sexually transmitted infections. One doctor who works at a clinic serving "predominately low-income immigrant families in southwest Chicago" said she would have used the CDC's information to monitor a recent chlamydia outbreak at a local high school.
"These doctors’ time and effort are valuable, scarce resources, and being forced to spend them elsewhere makes their jobs harder and their treatment less effective," Doctors for America said.
The judge agreed that the administration's actions are "arbitrary and capricious" and would result in "irreparable harm."
"Finally, it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare," Bates wrote.
The Justice Department argued that the inconvenience of looking up alternative sources of information does not meet the legal standard of "irreparable harm," and the data that was removed is still accessible through internet archives.
"A potential impingement upon the President’s Article II authority over the operations of the Executive Branch is always grounds for caution," the DOJ wrote.
The ruling is the latest example of federal judges pushing back on Trump's efforts to rein in a bloated, politicized federal bureaucracy. Trump and his allies have accused the courts of overreach, with Elon Musk blasting Bates' ruling as "absurd."
"Truly absurd. Judges as website editors!?" Musk wrote. "We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist. The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous! Enough is enough.
Truly absurd. Judges as website editors!?
We should at least ATTEMPT to fire this junky jurist.
The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous!
Enough is enough. https://t.co/lMPq6zWOj5
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2025
