US judge blocks Biden rule adding gender identity protections to
healthcare
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[July 05, 2024]
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Wednesday blocked the Biden administration
from enforcing a new rule against discrimination on the basis of gender
identity in healthcare while he hears a lawsuit challenging it by 15
Republican-led states.
The rule was finalized in May by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) and was set to take effect on Friday. It states that a
federal prohibition on sex discrimination, part of the Affordable Care
Act health insurance law, extends to discrimination against transgender
people.
States opposing the new rule had said in their lawsuit that it would
require their Medicaid programs covering low-income residents to pay for
treatments like hormones and surgeries for transgender people, including
for minors. Many Republican states have passed laws banning such
treatments, often called gender-affirming care, for minors.
The rule applies to recipients of federal funds, including Medicaid
programs. It followed executive orders President Joe Biden issued in
2021 and 2022 instructing agencies like HHS to take measures protecting
transgender people from discrimination.
Senior U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola in Gulfport, Mississippi, said
in his preliminary order on Wednesday that the Republican states were
likely to succeed in their challenge. He said that the administration
had overstepped its authority by interpreting "sex" in the federal law
to include gender identity.
"Today a federal court said no to the Biden administration's attempt to
illegally force every health care provider in America to adopt the most
extreme version of gender ideology," Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan
Skrmetti, who led the lawsuit alongside Mississippi Attorney General
Lynn Fitch, said in a statement. The states opposing the rule also
include Georgia, Ohio and Virginia.
HHS did not respond to a request for comment.
"This ruling is not only morally wrong, it's also bad policy," Kelley
Robinson, president of Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group
supporting transgender rights, said in a statement. "Everyone deserves
access to the medical care they need to be healthy and thrive."
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REUTERS/Hannah Beier
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jul/22/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png) In a court filing, HHS said states'
fears were "speculative" and that the rule did not override doctors'
medical judgment. It said that the states were not entitled to an
order blocking the rule because they did not face any imminent
enforcement.
Guirola, however, said in Wednesday's ruling that the cost of
ensuring compliance with the rule would be an immediate harm to the
states.
Two other judges in Florida and Texas later on Wednesday issued
separate rulings siding with other Republican state attorneys
general challenging the rule, though those orders only prevented it
from being enforced in those two states plus Montana.
U.S. District Judge William Jung, an appointee of Republican former
President Donald Trump in Tampa, wrote that nationwide rulings by
judges in a single federal district, like Guirola's, "ought to be
the rare exception, not routine."
The decisions came the week after the U.S. Supreme Court curbed
federal agencies' power by ruling that courts must no longer defer
to their interpretation of ambiguous laws. Guirola, who was
appointed to the bench by Republican former President George W.
Bush, noted that ruling, though he ultimately concluded that the law
was not ambiguous.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; additional reporting by
Nate Raymond; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Alexia Garamfalvi and
Rosalba O'Brien)
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