Nine LGBTQ, health and HIV organizations sued the Trump administration Thursday over three executive orders targeting transgender people and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which they say have hobbled their ability to provide critical health services by demanding they ignore key parts of an individual’s identity.

Based in six different states, the groups are challenging President Trump’s orders to terminate DEI programs and “equity-related” grants and declaring that the government recognizes only two sexes, male and female. Each of the orders puts the organizations, which serve historically marginalized populations, at risk of losing their federal funding.

“The Executive Orders together target Plaintiffs and the people they serve for opprobrium and exclusion from services that receive federal financial assistance because of who they are,” they say in the lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The groups, represented by Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, are asking the court to temporarily block enforcement of the orders while litigation continues. They argue the executive orders violate their constitutional rights and punish organizations that acknowledge the existence of transgender people.

Tyler TerMeer, CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation — the lead plaintiff in the case — said the government froze the group’s federal funding as “an attempt to intimidate us into silence.”

The orders could make it more difficult for health organizations to tailor their services to their communities, said Jose Abrigo, director of Lambda Legal’s HIV Project.

“A lot of the services........

© The Hill