The Trump administration is facing a new legal complaint from a group of federal employees affected by a policy set to take effect Thursday that eliminates coverage for gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programs, according to a report from the Associated Press. The complaint, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, asks the Office of Personnel Management to rescind its policy, and it frames the coverage change as discrimination.
The policy stems from an August announcement by the Office of Personnel Management that it would stop covering “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” for federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers under health insurance programs. In the complaint, attorneys with the Human Rights Campaign argue that denying coverage for gender-affirming care is sex-based discrimination.
Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Kelley Robinson said the effort was not about medical access, writing that, “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,” according to the statement Robinson made when the move was announced. The complaint says the claim is being made on behalf of the employees who are affected and on behalf of a “class of similarly situated federal employees.”
The complaint includes testimonies from four current federal workers, identified in the Associated Press report as working at the State Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Postal Service. The workers say the elimination of coverage would directly affect their families, including care that doctors have recommended for a child, as described in the filing.
The Postal Service employee described in the complaint has a daughter whose doctors recommended puberty blockers and possibly hormone replacement therapy for gender dysphoria, which the complaint says would not be covered under the new OPM policy. The filing also states that the affected employees are asking for the personnel office to reverse the policy.
The complaint comes as the Trump administration has taken other steps aimed at restricting gender-affirming care, particularly for minors. In December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released proposals that would block gender-affirming care for minors, including an approach that would bar Medicare and Medicaid dollars to hospitals that provide such care to children, the Associated Press report said.
In the same report, the Associated Press said senior Trump officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have called gender-affirming care “malpractice” for minors. The Associated Press also noted that those restrictions run counter to recommendations from major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.