March 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has upheld an Obama-era policy allowing insurers to limit federal workers’ insurance coverage for gender-affirming treatment, potentially bolstering a recent total ban by President Donald Trump’s administration, the Office of Personnel Management said on Thursday.
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A new OPM policy that took effect January 1 prohibits carriers from providing the coverage at all, part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to roll back legal rights for transgender people.
Four current or former federal employees who are transgender claimed the 2015 policy discriminated against them on the basis of their sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and their gender dysphoria in violation of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That law prohibits federal agencies from discriminating based on disability.
But the EEOC said the U.S. Supreme Court had made clear last year in United States v. Skrmetti that regulating gender-affirming procedures is not equivalent to discrimination based on sex. The court in its decision upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors.
EEOC upholds restrictions on gender-affirming care coverage for federal workers
