Federal workers took a first step toward suing the Trump administration on Thursday over a policy change that bans their insurance plans from covering gender-affirming care beginning this year.
The class-action complaint alleges that a policy change outlined by the Office of Personnel Management to federal insurance providers in August — stipulating that gender-affirming care will no longer be covered in almost all cases under the Federal Employee Health Benefits or Postal Service Health Benefits programs — constitutes sex-based discrimination. The policy makes a narrow exception for counseling services for diagnosed or possible gender dysphoria or for those who are in the midst of medical treatments. Those health insurance plans cover both federal workers and eligible family members.
There are approximately 14,000 transgender federal employees, according to the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ-focused think tank, at the UCLA School of Law.
The complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity office at the OPM.
“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,” Human Rights Campaign Foundation president Kelley Robinson said in a statement. The foundation is working alongside external lawyers to represent federal workers in the case.
The complaint seeks, among other things, the revocation of the policy change, coverage of care denied under the change and attorneys’ fees. If the OPM does not resolve the workers’ concerns, the lawyers will pursue the complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and, eventually, in a federal lawsuit.
The complaint includes testimonies from a handful of trans federal workers — whose names are redacted from the filing — who share how they would be affected if the policy takes effect. They include a State Department employee who says they have not yet begun hormones or surgery for their gender dysphoria diagnosis and a Postal Service employee whose daughter is supposed to receive puberty blockers and will likely eventually seek hormone replacement therapy.
Without insurance coverage, such treatments can cost tens of thousands of dollars, though the cost varies for everyone, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson pointed out.
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 policy change is one of the Trump administration’s many attempts to end federal recognition of transgender Americans.
Last month, top health officials announcing a slate of proposals aimed at stymieing gender-affirming care for trans youth — including seeking to bar hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds from providing gender-affirming care for kids; prohibiting Medicaid funding for that care; and reversing the Biden administration’s characterization of gender dysphoria as a disability under federal law.
That announcement also prompted a lawsuit, from 19 states plus the District of Columbia, alleging that the Department of Health and Human Services policy changes were arbitrary and that the agency lacks the authority to make such unilateral changes.
