5 states sue over transgender rules

Suit: Rules could force doctors to act against their beliefs.

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Texas and four other Republican-led states filed another lawsuit Tuesday seeking to roll back the Obama administration’s efforts to strengthen transgender rights, saying new federal nondiscrimination health rules could force doctors to act contrary to their medical judgment or religious beliefs.

The lawsuit is the second in recent months in which conservative states have sued over federal efforts to defend transgender rights.

Social conservatives claimed victory Sunday when a federal judge in Texas halted an Obama administration directive requiring public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Now they’re asking that same court to block new regulations intended to ban discrimination against transgender persons by doctors, hospitals and insurers.

The latest lawsuit contends that the rules, which were finalized in May, could force doctors to help with gender transition contrary to their religious beliefs or medical judgment. Transgender rights advocates called that a far-fetched hypothetical, saying a person seeking such a transformation would not choose a doctor who lacked suitable experience and expertise.

Joining Texas in the lawsuit are Wisconsin, Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas, along with the Christian Medical and Dental Association and Franciscan Alliance, an Indiana-based network of religious hospitals.

The regulations discard “independent medical judgment and a physician’s duty to his or her patient’s permanent well-being and replaces them with rigid commands,” the lawsuit states.

Jillian Weiss, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the new federal rules were groundbreaking and pointed out that other states already had similar protections. Ten states and Washington, D.C., require private insurers to cover transgender health care, while six states plus the nation’s capital cover such services through their Medicaid programs, according to advocates.

“The only thing a doctor is obliged to do is treat all patients, including trans patients, with dignity and respect and to make treatment decisions free from bias,” Weiss said. “If a doctor has a sound, evidence-based, medical reason to delay transition care for a specific patient, that would be respected under the regulations.”

The Obama administration finalized the regulations around the time it issued its directive to public schools regarding transgender students. Thirteen states signed on to fight that directive, including three involved in the latest lawsuit, and won a temporary injunction this week from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor.

O’Connor ruled that the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title IX “is not ambiguous” about sex being defined as “the biological and anatomical differences between male and female students as determined at their birth.” He also said federal officials skirted rules requiring a chance for input and feedback before new rules were implemented.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will appeal the ruling.

ELAINE THOMPSON / AP The lawsuit is the second in recent months in which conservative states have sued over federal efforts to defend transgender rights.