Federal judge strikes down Biden-era transgender healthcare rule

A federal judge struck down a Biden-era rule that extended federal anti-discrimination measures to transgender health care, writing that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “exceeded its authority by implementing regulations redefining sex discrimination and prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.”

The ruling by Judge Louis Guirola Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi came after a coalition of 15 Republican-led states filed a lawsuit over the issue, according to The Hill.

“When Biden-era bureaucrats attempted to illegally rewrite our laws to impose radical gender ideology across all areas of American health care, Tennessee stood strong and stopped them,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement following the ruling. “Our coalition of fifteen states has worked together to protect the right of health care providers across America to make decisions based on evidence, reason and conscience.”

“This decision restores not only common sense but also constitutional limits on federal overreach, and I am proud of the team of excellent lawyers who fought to the end,” he added.

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A protester waves a transgender pride flag during a President’s Day demonstration near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, February 17, 2025. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Skrmetti’s office said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi found that HHS “exceeded its authority when it issued a rule in May 2024 redefining Title IX’s prohibition against ‘sex’ discrimination — which Congress incorporated into the ACA through Section 1557 — to include gender identity.”

“The 2024 HHS rule represented a concerning federal intrusion into states’ traditional authority to regulate health care and make decisions about their own Medicaid programs. Specifically, the rule would have prohibited health care facilities from maintaining gender-segregated spaces, required certain health care providers to administer unproven and risky procedures for gender dysphoria, and required states to subsidize these experimental treatments through their Medicaid programs,” it reads. continued. “In striking down the rule, Justice Louis Guirola determined that when Congress passed Title IX in 1972, ‘sex’ meant biological sex and that federal agencies could not unilaterally rewrite laws decades later to advance political agendas.”

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A transgender pride flag is flown in front of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The states involved in the lawsuit were Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.

The rule was first created during former President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016, before President Donald Trump reversed it in his first term and then former President Joe Biden reversed it again, The Hill reported.

Guirola’s ruling said HHS “exceeded its authority by implementing regulations redefining sex discrimination and prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.”

Then-President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with then-President Joe Biden during Trump’s inauguration in the Capitol Rotunda, January 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

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The judge universally struck down the rule, but it had already been blocked from going into effect. It has been suspended since July 2024, according to Bloomberg Law.