In what is becoming a nationwide trend, a federal judge is restraining one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders, in this case by ordering that deleted gender ideology webpages at federal health agencies be restored. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order demanding that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restore webpages that had been deleted after an executive order from the president.

Upon returning to office last month, Trump signed the executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which stipulated that all federal government agencies “shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages.” Consequently, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo giving federal agencies until January 31 to remove all websites, webpages, social media, and other public media promoting gender ideology.

Doctors for America, a partisan activist organization founded by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, quickly filed a complaint, claiming that the group’s members “regularly” use the deleted gender ideology webpages “in treating patients and conducting research.” According to Bates in his opinion attached to the court order, the deleted webpages are necessary to members of Doctors for America because “alternate resources may not be as comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant, and accessible to DFA’s healthcare providers as the removed webpages…”

Bates ultimately ruled in favor of granting the temporary restraining order requested by Doctors for America, claiming that the activist group is likely to succeed in its arguments that removing the gender ideology webpages was illegal. The judge wrote that “it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare.” He continued, “If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions.” Bates concluded, “The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”

This is just the latest in a series of cases where federal judges have halted Trump’s executive orders and actions using temporary restraining orders. Most notably, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed by Trump himself in 2019, temporarily blocked the president from placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) workers on leave after Trump essentially ordered the agency be shuttered. Other judges have issued injunctions against Trump’s actions removing biological men from women’s prisons, offering to “buy out” federal employees, and empowering the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to audit U.S. Treasury Department payments.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Article III Project founder and attorney Mike Davis explained, “Activist judges are stealing President Trump’s executive power over political differences. This is unacceptable.” He continued, “These activist judges are creating a constitutional crisis, and the Supreme Court and Congress must rein in these activists.”