Federal appeals court clears Florida's lawsuit against pediatrics group over youth gender procedures

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court injunction this week, allowing Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to press forward with his lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics over what he calls misleading claims about the safety of gender transition procedures for minors.

The ruling strips away the legal barrier a Clinton-appointed federal judge in Chicago erected in June, a barrier that 21 state attorneys general and at least one appellate judge had already called an overreach. Florida's case can now proceed in state court, where Uthmeier first filed it in December 2025.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the appeals court's en banc decision landed Wednesday, clearing what Uthmeier described as "every barrier" the district court had put up. The AAP's broader appeal remains pending before the 7th Circuit, but for now, the organization must answer the Florida attorney general's claims on his home turf.

How a Chicago courtroom tried to stop a Florida lawsuit

Uthmeier filed his original complaint in December 2025, alleging the AAP promoted sex-change procedures for minors as safe and reversible without sufficient scientific evidence. The suit was filed under Florida state law and aimed at Florida state court.

The AAP went to federal court in Illinois to block it. Judge Matthew Kennedy, appointed by President Clinton, obliged. In a written statement dated June 2, Kennedy accused the attorney general of "retaliating against AAP without a reasonable expectation of success." He then ruled on June 8 that Uthmeier's claim could not continue.

What happened next raised procedural eyebrows. Reuters reported that Kennedy ruled on Uthmeier's appeal from the bench rather than convening a three-judge panel, which is standard practice. On June 22, the Chicago-based court issued an injunction formally blocking Florida from pursuing the case.

That injunction drew a sharp dissent from Judge Scuddler on the 7th Circuit, who called it a "grievous blow to federalism." The phrase captured what critics saw plainly: an Illinois federal judge, applying no Florida law whatsoever, had decided that a Florida attorney general had no business suing in his own state's courts.

Twenty-one states weigh in

A coalition of 21 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief on June 11 backing Uthmeier's appeal. Their filing laid bare what they viewed as the district court's fundamental error.

"No Florida court has yet ruled that the Attorney General's claims are utterly without merit under Florida law, and it very well may turn out that the Attorney General will win his lawsuit in state court. But the district court did not even attempt to discern how Florida courts would apply their law (as one would expect a federal court to do in any case about state law). It did not cite a single Florida decision. Rather, this Illinois-based district court considered one factor only, its own view of what makes for a 'weak' claim."

That passage deserves a second read. A federal judge in Illinois blocked a Florida state-law claim without citing a single Florida decision. He substituted his own judgment about claim strength for the judgment of the courts that actually apply the law in question.

The pattern is familiar. Federal courts have increasingly become the venue of choice for organizations seeking to block state-level enforcement actions they dislike, regardless of whether the federal court sits in the same state, applies the same law, or has any particular connection to the dispute. A New York judge's decision to block the DOJ from obtaining medical records in a child transgender procedures probe illustrated a similar dynamic from the other direction.

The AAP's defense

The AAP did not sit idle. In a June 9 court filing, the organization argued that allowing the appeal to proceed "would allow Uthmeier to resume the retaliatory and unconstitutional enforcement action in Florida state court that the district court determined is causing irreparable harm to AAP while this Court considers the stay motion."

Note the framing. The AAP characterized a state attorney general's consumer-protection-style lawsuit as "retaliatory" and "unconstitutional", language that presumes the conclusion the lawsuit is meant to test. Whether Uthmeier's claims have merit is precisely what a trial would determine. The AAP's position amounted to asking a federal court to preemptively declare a state lawsuit illegitimate before any Florida court had weighed in.

The 7th Circuit, sitting en banc, disagreed. It reversed the lower court injunction and cleared the path for the Florida case to move forward. The specific reasoning in the en banc decision has not been detailed in available reporting, but the result speaks clearly enough: the appellate court found no basis for an Illinois district judge to keep Florida's attorney general out of Florida's own courts.

The broader legal fight is not over. The 7th Circuit is still considering the AAP's appeal on other grounds. But the immediate practical effect is that Uthmeier can resume his case.

The underlying question nobody wants to answer

Uthmeier's lawsuit rests on a specific allegation: that the AAP told the public gender transition procedures for minors were safe and reversible without adequate scientific backing. Whether that allegation holds up will depend on what Florida courts find when they examine the evidence.

That examination is exactly what the AAP fought to prevent. The organization did not seek to win on the merits in Florida. It sought to ensure the merits were never examined at all, by persuading a federal judge in another state to shut the courthouse door.

The Trump administration's recent appeal of a ruling that blocked Kennedy's vaccine policy overhaul reflects a broader pattern in which federal courts have become battlegrounds for policy disputes that belong in other forums.

Uthmeier celebrated the ruling on X, posting on July 8:

"CA7 saw right through the Chicago-based district court's attempt to stop our lawsuit against AAP for their deception on the safety of mutilating procedures on kids and removed every barrier the court tried to put up. Accountability will proceed in Florida!"

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that it requested comment from both Uthmeier's office and the AAP but received no response at the time of publication.

Federalism on the line

The procedural history of this case reads like a case study in forum shopping. The AAP, headquartered in Illinois, ran to a friendly federal court in its own backyard to block a lawsuit filed under another state's laws, in another state's courts, by another state's chief law enforcement officer. The district judge who granted relief did so without applying a single line of Florida precedent.

Judge Scuddler's dissent calling the injunction a "grievous blow to federalism" was not hyperbole. If a federal judge in Illinois can block a Florida attorney general from suing in Florida under Florida law, based solely on the Illinois judge's personal assessment of claim strength, then the principle that states control their own legal systems becomes decorative.

Twenty-one attorneys general understood the stakes. Their amicus brief did not merely support Uthmeier's position on the merits. It defended the basic structural principle that state-law claims belong in state courts, decided under state precedent, by judges who actually know the law they are applying.

The Eleventh Circuit's ruling on Florida's Stop WOKE Act showed that federal appeals courts are not rubber stamps for any state policy. But there is a difference between a federal court reviewing a state law on constitutional grounds and a federal court in a different state simply declaring a state-law claim too weak to pursue, without consulting the state's own legal standards.

What comes next

The case now returns to Florida state court, where Uthmeier's original complaint will face the scrutiny it was always meant to face, under Florida law, before Florida judges, with Florida precedent as the guide.

The AAP will have every opportunity to defend itself on the merits. It can argue that its public statements about gender transition procedures for minors were scientifically supported. It can challenge Uthmeier's interpretation of consumer protection law. It can present expert testimony and peer-reviewed research.

What it can no longer do is avoid the argument entirely by hiding behind a federal judge in Chicago.

The 7th Circuit's broader consideration of the AAP's appeal remains pending. But the immediate message of the en banc decision is straightforward: if a state attorney general wants to enforce his state's laws in his state's courts, a federal judge a thousand miles away does not get to veto that effort based on nothing more than his own opinion of the case's strength.

When 21 attorneys general have to file a brief explaining that federal courts should apply state law before blocking state lawsuits, something has gone badly wrong with the system. The 7th Circuit, at least, agreed.