Nonprofits working to combat domestic violence and sexual assault have notched a string of legal wins as they push back against efforts by the Trump administration to put restrictions on work that goes against the administration’s views.
A series of lawsuits has, at least temporarily, blocked the administration from enforcing restrictions on millions of dollars of funding for upcoming grants and forced it to return grants it took away from some nonprofits working with LGBTQ+ victims.
Domestic violence groups and the broader network of gender-based violence nonprofits have been on high alert since the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders — followed by a temporary federal freeze in late January — to end federal funding for programs or organizations out of step with the administration’s ideology. The funding, advocates say, is essential to providing life-saving services to vulnerable victims, who are more likely to be women.
Through agency rules, the administration is actively trying to restrict the use of federal grants to fund what it calls “illegal” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility activities and “gender ideology extremism.” It is also trying to restrict federal grants from organizations that in any way express support for abortion and that serve immigrants without permanent legal status in the country.
The restrictions go even further: Nonprofits that want to continue to receive federal funding from the Office on Violence Against Women, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, are not allowed to “frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses.”
Trump, who has been found liable for sexual assault, last month downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence crimes in a speech. “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime,” Trump said.
The lawsuits
In June, 17 state-level coalitions that support victims of domestic and sexual violence, represented by Democracy Forward and the National Women’s Law Center, sued the administration over such restrictions on Violence Against Women Act grants awarded by the Justice Department. The following month, in a separate lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward, many of the same state coalitions sued over similar rules attached to grants from the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
In early August, Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from enforcing the new restrictions on Justice Department grants as the case progresses.
The judge agreed that the nonprofits face an impossible choice between accepting conditions that will harm the core services they provide or going without essential funding. The judge cited two examples: Complying with the rules would bar the organizations from providing the same quality of services to transgender victims and could also prevent organizations counseling victims from doing anything other than calling law enforcement.
“These examples are simply two of many activities that the coalitions engage in that they reasonably fear will now subject them to loss of grant funding,” Smith wrote. “The Office’s assurances that … the office will be reasonable in its interpretation of the conditions is cold comfort.”
A similar preliminary injunction came down in mid-October in the HHS and HUD case, blocking the rollout of restrictions on those agencies’ grants as the case continues. In her ruling, District Judge Melissa DuBose, also of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, said the administration didn’t provide a “satisfactory explanation” the new slew of restrictions, finding that Trump officials “engaged in a baseless and arbitrary process” that didn’t consider the “harmful impact their decision would have on the coalitions and the vulnerable populations they serve.”
Litigation in both cases will likely stretch into 2026.
Advocates against domestic violence and sexual assault celebrated the two rulings, which are part of a broader effort that also includes challenges to rules trying to strip funding from groups that work with LGBTQ+ and immigrant victims.
“This injunction provides immediate relief to survivors, and it allows us and our programs to continue our life-saving work without the threat of restrictive, harmful policies that would have undermined our ability to support those who need it most,” Mike Waterloo of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence said of the August ruling.
“This is not a permanent solution, and we still have work to do.”
A coalition of states working with Democracy Forward called the ruling on health and housing grants “a relief and a win that gives us breathing room to continue this vital work.”
LGBTQ+ victims
One of the Trump administration’s first targets was funding that supported groups working with LGBTQ+ people. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy group, helmed an early lawsuit on behalf of nine nonprofits that receive federal funding, several working in the intimate partner violence field.
The organizations argue that the Trump administration’s executive orders, including the order calling for the end of federal funding for activities that promote “gender ideology extremism,” amount to “an existential threat to transgender people.” Forcing the organizations to comply violates the groups’ free speech, due process and equal protection rights, they say.
In June, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction in the case that favored the nonprofits, saying that their case was likely to succeed in court. The judge’s ruling reinstated canceled grants and voided instructions hindering new applications and instructions for funding, including one from the Office of Violence Against Women stating that “that no LGBTQ+ related content should be submitted.”
The administration appealed the decision to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in August. The case continues to move through the courts.
LGBTQ+ Americans, with the exception of gay men, are more likely to have experienced domestic violence, partner abuse or dating violence than cisgender and heterosexual people. Queer women are significantly more likely to have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime than straight women, according to an analysis of federal survey data by the Human Rights Campaign. Fifty-four percent of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey said they have experienced intimate partner violence, and 47 percent reported being sexually assaulted.
FORGE, one of the plaintiffs, is among the only organizations in the country focused specifically on transgender victims of violence. The 30-year-old organization relies on federal grants for 90 percent of its funding.
Legal services for immigrant victims
A coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit in early October challenging a new rule from the Justice Department that could restrict the use of federal grants to pay for legal services for immigrant victims of domestic and sexual violence.
The upcoming rule says states and the local nonprofits they fund are barred from providing some legal services to survivors who don’t have legal status to be in the country. The lawsuit argues that the Violence Against Women Act — which authorized a part of the funding in question — includes a broad list of allowable legal services that include divorce, parental rights, child support, employment-related lawsuits, housing, civil rights and more.
The Justice Department’s new rule does allow states to pay for restraining and custody orders, legal action dealing with human trafficking and legal services to obtain U and T visas, as required by other laws.
The states argue that it’s unclear how exactly they and the organizations that use the funding will be able to comply with the order: Which immigrants are restricted? What legal services are not allowed?
They also argue that the order would force them to violate the law, including the Violence Against Women Act, which says that services for victims are “not dependent on the victim’s immigration status.”
“With this cruel attempt to dictate which survivors deserve access to legal supports, DOJ is endangering families, silencing survivors, and threatening public safety. I will not stand idly by while the federal government unjustly attacks people seeking protection from violence,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office is taking the lead on the lawsuit. (James, who has led more than a dozen lawsuits against the Trump administration, is a political target of Trump; the president’s Justice Department is pursuing federal mortgage fraud charges against James related to a house she owns in Virginia.)
“We are asking the court to block this illegal rule before it takes effect, immeasurably harming survivors.”
The administration notified states of the new rule in August. It is expected to take effect in November.
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