The Trump administration is facing a legal complaint from a group of government employees affected by a new policy going into effect Thursday that eliminates coverage for gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programs.
The complaint, filed Thursday on the employees’ behalf by the Human Rights Campaign, is in response to an August announcement from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that it would no longer cover “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” in health insurance programs for federal employees and US Postal Service workers.
The complaint argues that denying coverage of gender-affirming care is sex-based discrimination and asks the personnel office to rescind the policy.
“This policy is not about cost or care – it is about driving transgender people and people with transgender spouses, children, and dependents out of the federal workforce,” the Human Rights Campaign Foundation president, Kelley Robinson, said in a statement announcing the move.
The complaint, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, includes testimonies from four current federal workers at the state department, health and human services and the postal service who would be directly affected by the elimination of coverage.
For instance, the postal service employee has a daughter whose doctors recommended that she get puberty blockers and potentially hormone replacement therapy for her diagnosed gender dysphoria, which would not be covered under the new OPM policy, according to the complaint.
The complaint notes that the workers are making the 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 US Department of Health and Human Services released proposals that would block gender-affirming care to minors, including a policy that would bar Medicare and Medicaid dollars to hospitals that provide such care to children.
Senior Trump officials, such as the health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, call gender-affirming care “malpractice” for minors. But such restrictions go against recommendations from major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
