Background: Advocates gather for a rally at the state Capitol complex in Nashville, Tenn., to oppose a series of bills that target the LGBTQ community, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023 (AP Photo/Jonathan Mattise, File). Inset: President Donald Trump in the East Room at the White House in Washington on January 29, 2025 (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images).
A group of federal employees has filed a legal complaint against the Trump administration over its policy denying federal health insurance coverage for gender-affirming medical care.
The complaint, filed on Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF), alleges that the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) policy "plainly discriminates on the basis of sex."
As the class-action complaint recounts, OPM this past August outlined that, beginning in 2026, "chemical and surgical modification of an individual's sex traits through medical interventions (to include 'gender transition' services) will no longer be covered" under the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) or Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) programs. The update was consistent with the current Trump administration's efforts to discourage — or outright ban — gender-affirming care.
Because the PSHB 2026 plan started on Thursday and the FEHB plan for this year begins on Jan. 11, the loss of coverage "will impact federal workers and their families" already this month. The HRCF stated the policy change is just "the latest development in the Trump administration's obsession with attacking transgender people."
The federal employee complainants on behalf of whom the HRCF is acting include a State Department worker and FEHB plan enrollee slated to undergo a procedure to treat their gender dysphoria, a Postal Service worker and PSHB enrollee whose daughter has been advised to take a puberty blocker and relies on their parent's coverage to do so, and others.
To the federal employees, the loss of coverage is not just a policy change, but a direct attack on transgender people.
"Starting today, untold numbers of federal employees and their families will be left out to dry at the hands of a shameless administration hell-bent on targeting the transgender community," said Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Kelley Robinson on Thursday. "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."
"These federal employees will now be forced into an impossible situation that pits them between their jobs and access to the care they need," Robinson added. "That is discrimination, plain and simple, and the HRC Foundation refuses to let it stand without a fight. Our litigation seeks to honor those federal workers and preserve the rights, respect, and dignity they deserve."
The Department of Justice declined to comment when reached by Law&Crime.
The federal workers seek relief in many forms, including the rescission of the OPM's policy, a declaratory judgment that states that the coverage exclusion violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — which prohibits discrimination based on sex, retroactive coverage for care denied under the new policy, a permanent injunction barring OPM from "any enforcement of the categorical coverage exclusion of gender-affirming medical care," and training initiated by OPM regarding equal employment opportunity laws.
If the complaint is not resolved with OPM, the complainants will seek class claims before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and possibly pursue a class action lawsuit in federal court, Reuters reported.