HHS Conditional Funding

On January 13, 2026, a coalition of 12 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in Rhode Island against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), challenging their unlawful conditioning of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding on states’ agreement to discriminate against transgender people. Under a new HHS policy, recipients of federal health, education, and research funding must certify compliance with a presidential executive order that seeks to harm transgender people and impose rigid, unscientific definitions of sex. We argue that the policy violates the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act, and conflicts with decades of court opinions as well as laws in many states, including Rhode Island.

New York, et al v. HHS