In mid-February, Vanderbilt Law hosted Omar Gonzalez-Pagan for a moderated discussion titled “Litigating Against Trump’s Gender Order and Protecting the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTQ+ People.” Held as part of the Dean’s Lecture Series, the discussion was hosted by Vanderbilt Law’s Office of Culture and Community as well as the Vanderbilt LGBTQ+ Policy Lab and OutLaw.
Gonzalez-Pagan is Senior Counsel and Health Care Strategist at Lambda Legal — the largest and oldest national legal organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people and persons living with HIV. His work as a litigator has advanced LGBTQ+ rights across the nation, including recent decisions in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) and Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).
The conversation began with an overview of what Gonzalez-Pagan describes as the Trump Administration’s focus on attacking gender ideology, through its broader policy goals included in Project 2025.
“The gender order defines gender ideology as believing or recognizing that a person can be of the sex other than [their] birth sex. It actually [categorizes gender ideology as] a false claim and a false belief,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “The gender order tries to define being male or female in a very simplistic, [and] frankly, unscientific way; they recognize somebody as male [or] female, as being obtained at the moment of conception.”
He then went on to argue how this definition, inherently and maliciously, targets transgender populations of people. “What it seeks to do is reject the very idea [that] transgender people exist,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “And as a consequence of that, it says that the federal government will only recognize somebody’s sex [according] to their birth sex on passports [and] federal identity documents.
The consequences of going against such orders, he contends, are devastating for public entities. To be found in violation of these mandates — or, in other words, accommodating “gender ideology” — means the revocation of federal funding for that entity, he explains. In the modern landscape of American government, this applies to essentially every entity, even private institutions: schools and universities, hospitals, towns, cities, and municipalities.
“It is the use of federal funding to coerce a point of view that is discriminatory, anachronistic on all of American society; it is the imposition of a particular point of view that is not shared by most people,” Gonzalez-Pagan said.
He emphasized that these policy agendas and attacks on transgender and gender nonconforming people are being pushed upon the states by the federal government over what is a minuscule number of Americans.
“Less than 1% of people are transgender people; of that number, the people who get more access to care because of needs, and opportunity and proximity [to care], are even smaller,” Gonzalez-Pagan explained. “The [Trump] administration has issued over six executive orders focused on this issue, and mind you, that’s just executive orders, not all the other regulatory acts. When you think about our country’s problems, there’s a disconnect here.”
Because of these attacks on minority populations of people, Gonzalez-Pagan has taken many of these issues to the courts, aiming to get them struck down for being unconstitutional and an overstep of the federal government’s power.
“The Courts are incredibly important [as a tool] for fighting back,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “In the last year alone, [my firm, Lambda Legal] has sued the administration seven times.”
These cases include pushing back against the gender order and definition of gender ideology, challenging the anti-DEI orders issued early in the Trump administration, contesting military bans against transgender individuals, and defending federal qualified health centers that offer gender affirming care as well as LGBTQ+ history centers.
“Personally, I am involved in six lawsuits against the Trump administration, and we have four injunctions, and all four remain in place,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “So that is, I think, a good thing right now. There’s a lot of ups and downs, but we’ve been able to at least stop most of the harms that we can.”
The conversation then shifted towards the healthcare aspect of these orders, especially relevant for Tennessee, where the case of United States v. Skrmetti (2025) originated. He noted that these forms of medical care have existed since the 1920s, when hormones and hormone blockers were introduced into healthcare settings. “In half the country, the care is completely illegal for people under 18, and in the other half, the federal administration is doing everything possible to make it impossible to obtain the care by forcing hospitals into stopping the care, and so we have a depleting universe of providers right now,” Gonzalez-Pagan said.
The impact of these orders, he argues, will lead to less research and data on the effectiveness of those medications, creating a reverse effect, where the medications and their availability become less widely available.
Gonzalez-Pagan concluded with reflections on what gives him hope for the future. “I know for certain that what we’re living in today is not permanent. I know for certain that we’re able to get out of this. I know for certain, too, that this is going to be costly to human life,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “We can find our way through this, and I’m certain that we all will play a part in it.”
Watch the full lecture below or on our YouTube channel.