Florida attorney general appeals Chicago judge’s ‘lawless’ transgender ruling

By Jonathan Bilyk | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

Saying a Chicago federal judge overstepped his constitutional authority, Florida’s state attorney general has asked a federal appeals court to quickly reverse that judge’s ruling that the Florida attorney general cannot use Florida state courts and Florida state law to sue the Chicago-based American Academy of Pediatrics for allegedly misleading the public about the safety of child gender transitions.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a motion on June 9, asking the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the injunction entered against his office by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly.

Kennelly’s injunction, Uthmeier wrote, is “lawless” and “historic, for all the wrong reasons.”

“So far as (Uthmeier) can tell, no federal court has ever enjoined an enforcement action pending in another State in this context, let alone an enforcement action filed by another State’s chief legal officer,” Uthmeier wrote.

Uthmeier’s petition came a week after Kennelly had ruled Uthmeier must halt his legal action against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), even in Florida state court.

In that June 2 ruling, Kennelly had agreed with the AAP that Uthmeier’s lawsuit amounted to a violation of the AAP’s First Amendment speech rights

The legal fight began in December 2025 in Florida’s 19th Judicial Circuit Court in St. Lucie County, when Uthmeier sued the AAP, along with two other medical organizations, the he World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society.

In that lawsuit, Uthmeier accused the organizations of violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the state’s Racketeer Influence and (RICO) Act.

The Florida lawsuit accused the groups of deceiving the public by allegedly knowingly lying about “credible evidence” backing their recommendations supporting the use of puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and gender transition surgeries for children.

In his filings, Uthmeier has particularly assailed the AAP for issuing a “policy statement” that concluded that “puberty blockers are ‘reversible’ and that gender-affirming care results in minors having fewer mental health concerns.” Uthmeier asserts those claims are not backed by scientific evidence and the policy statement was allegedly drafted and advanced by one person, a doctor who was not considered a medical authority, but was still undergoing his residency at the time and was launching a practice that “consisted largely of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors.”

“… AAP abandoned its ordinary procedural safeguards designed to separate editorial control and entrusted its clinical guidelines for treating pediatric gender dysphoria to an inexperienced market participant with conflicts of interest,” Uthmeier said in his filing.

The AAP has refused to retract the policy statement, despite government pressure and Uthmeier’s lawsuit.

Instead, the AAP, which is based in Chicago’s suburbs, sued Uthmeier in Chicago federal court, asserting Uthmeier’s lawsuit is an unconstitutional attempt to suppress their speech concerning the controversy surrounding child gender transitions.

Uthmeier sought to dismiss the AAP’s lawsuit, saying the action marked an unprecedented extra-jurisdictional attempt to use a federal court in one state to block a state attorney general from attempting to enforce his state’s laws in that state’s courts.

Kennelly, however, sided with the AAP, saying he believed an injunction is warranted because the effect of Florida’s lawsuit would be felt by the AAP, an organization in Illinois.

Although Illinois wasn’t the “focal point” of Uthmeier’s actions and statements targeting the AAP, “the effect on the Illinois audience is a key part of the First Amendment harm that AAP alleges,” Kennelly wrote. “Besides the general harm to its reputation among Illinois residents, AAP has submitted an uncontroverted affidavit attesting that it has faced security issues at its events and that its members have been harassed. Though it does not specify the location of these incidents, it is implausible that these issues are happening everywhere but the state in which AAP is headquartered.”

Kennelly said the convincing argument is that the relief Uthmeier seeks — an injunction to prevent the group from publishing anything supporting its position or collaborating with the other defendants — isn’t limited to what the group does in Florida.

In response, Uthmeier has called both the AAP’s lawsuit and Kennelly’s decision “frivolous.”

Uthmeier then filed an emergency motion on appeal, asserting the appeals court must immediately intervene and block Kennelly’s orders.

Uthmeier said Kennelly’s “novel” decision flies in the face of virtually all legal precedent. If allowed to stand, Uthmeier said, the reasoning would create a pathway for federal judges virtually anywhere to block “state prosecutions and civil enforcement actions based on any federal court’s initial misimpressions of the state action’s merit.”

The AAP is expected to file a full response to Uthmeier’s motion on June 11.

However, in the meantime, a three-judge Seventh Circuit panel declined for now to block Kennelly’s order. They said they are not ruling on the merits of the case, at this point, but only declining to block the order because they do not perceive any risk of “irreparable harm” faced by Uthmeier or the state of Florida, at this point.

The panel pledged “to act promptly” on Uthmeier’s more broad request to stay Kennelly’s order, pending appeal.

The panel includes Seventh Circuit judges David F. Hamilton, Michael Y. Scudder and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi.

Hamilton was appointed to the court by former President Barack Obama. Scudder was appointed by President Donald Trump, during his first term in office. And Jackson-Akiwumi was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

Kennelly was appointed to the federal bench in Chicago by former President Bill Clinton.

The AAP is represented in the Chicago federal courts by attorneys from the firm of Covington & Burling, of Washington, D.C.