A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday is taking aim at the Trump administration’s policy to prohibit federal employees’ health insurance from covering gender-affirming care.
An anonymous group of transgender and gender-nonconforming federal workers argues that the rule banning coverage of “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” for people enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs constitutes sex-based discrimination.
The complaint filed in D.C. federal court says the five anonymous plaintiffs “are contemplating draining their savings, or are undertaking significant financial hardship” to pay for their care after the January rule change.
A State Department employee affected by the rule would have to pay $100,000 out of pocket for gender-affirming surgery, the complaint states. Another employee mentioned in the lawsuit, who works for the Department of Health and Human Services, is facing costs of $1,000 a year for hormone replacement therapy and about $6,000 for gender-affirming surgery without insurance coverage. An employee of the Postal Service is depleting his family’s savings to pay for his transgender daughter’s care, which is no longer covered under the federal employee’s plan, according to the complaint.
As a result of the financial burdens, the lawsuit argues, those affected by the rule “continue to suffer from severe gender dysphoria, related distress and anxiety, stigma, and the risk of discrimination, violence, and harassment by others.”
“This categorical denial of treatment for those who require continuing gender-affirming care is akin to denying continuing insulin treatment for someone with diabetes,” the complaint says.
Leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, support access to gender-affirming care, including for minors, and oppose efforts to restrict it.
The lawsuit cites new research published last month by the Williams Institute, a research center based at the UCLA School of Law focused on how public policy impacts LGBTQ people, that estimates the rule change would impact at least 39,400 transgender people enrolled in FEHB.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose legal team is helping to represent the plaintiffs, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: “Healthcare access should never be weaponized to advance discrimination — and the denial of coverage for critical healthcare based simply on who you are blatantly violates the rights of all of us.”
The legal challenge names Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees implementation of the rule, as the defendant. The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction preventing enforcement of the rule, retroactive coverage for gender-affirming care that has been denied to the plaintiffs due to the rule, and damages and attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit comes as the latest legal challenge to the Trump administration’s targeted crackdown on transgender Americans. It also follows a complaint federal workers filed over the policy with the Equal Employment Opportunity office at the OPM earlier this year — a required first step before filing a federal lawsuit.
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