Federal employees file complaint against Trump administration’s ban on gender-affirming care
WASHINGTON– The Trump administration is facing a new lawsuit filed by a group of government employees who are affected by a new policy that took effect Thursday that eliminates coverage of gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programs.
The suit, filed Thursday on behalf of the employees by the Human Rights Campaign, follows an August announcement by the Office of Personnel Management that it would no longer cover “the chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sexual traits through medical interventions” in health insurance programs for federal employees and U.S. Postal Service employees.
The complaint argues that denying coverage for gender-affirming care constitutes sex discrimination and asks the personnel office to rescind the policy.
“This policy is not about cost or care – it is about excluding transgender people and people with transgender spouses, children and dependents from federal work,” Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Kelley Robinson said in a statement announcing the decision.
The complaint, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, includes testimony from four current federal employees at the Departments of State, Health and Human Services, and the Postal Service who would be directly affected by the coverage’s elimination.
For example, the Postal Service employee has a daughter whose doctors recommended she take puberty blockers and possibly hormone replacement therapy for her diagnosed gender dysphoria, which would not be covered under OPM’s new policy, according to the complaint.
The complaint says the workers are bringing this claim on behalf of themselves and a “class of similarly situated federal employees.”
The Trump administration has taken other steps to restrict care for transgender Americans, particularly minors. In December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released proposals that would block gender-affirming care for minors, including a policy that would ban Medicare and Medicaid subsidies to hospitals that provide such care to children.
Top Trump officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., call gender-affirming care “malpractice” for minors. But such restrictions run counter to recommendations from major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
