“The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Texas federal court, attempts to roll back a rule imposed by the Department of Health and Human Services in May that expanded the interpretation of “sex” under the Affordable Care Act to include ‘gender identity.'” HHS confirmed that its rule would “likely cover nearly all licensed physicians because they accept federal financial assistance”.
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In issuing the injunction Sunday, O’Connor wrote that federal agencies exceeded their authority under the 1972 law banning sex discrimination in schools.
But Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign in Louisville, criticized the judge’s ruling as being out of step with the values of treating everyone fairly and equally – principles upon which America was founded.
“This case presents the hard issue of balancing the protection of students’ rights and that of personal privacy … while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school”, he wrote.
The lawsuit is the second in recent months in which conservative states have sued over federal efforts to defend transgender rights. As the Obama Administration has attempted to do in other instances, this new rule interprets “sex” as a state of mind, not a biological fact, Paxton said in a statement.
In the HHS mandate case, plaintiffs argue that the Obama administration curtailed the voice of the people in issuing such sweeping regulations, and didn’t follow standard rulemaking procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act and multiple other federal laws.
School districts have the option to voluntarily implement the guidelines but the policy is no longer tied to federal education funding.
Reyes says the injunction doesn’t stop schools from following the directive if they want but stops federal officials from enforcing it until the court case is settled. “That can not be allowed to continue, which is why we took action to protect states and school districts”.
The Obama Administration rejected the request, arguing, “We believe that the government has a compelling interest in ensuring that individuals have nondiscriminatory access to health care and health coverage”.
Wichita Falls has again found itself in the center of a battle over transgender rights. “Intentional refusals to use a transgender student’s preferred name/pronoun violate this regulation”.
Paul Castillo is a Dallas attorney for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, which had urged the court to let the White House directive stand.
This time, the subject is health rights for transgender people.
If Paxton won this lawsuit, thus allowing doctors to refuse transgender-related treatment, Robinson said doctors would essentially be “oppressing someone for making their own health choices”. “The decision is certainly emotional and certainly an attack on transgender students’ dignity”.
– Fifty-one families in Chicago-area Palatine, Ill., sued the federal government after a local school opened girls’ restrooms to a student who is biologically male without informing parents, according to an ADF release. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch likened that law to the policies of racial segregation. Texas alone gets roughly $10 billion in federal education funds.
Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kentucky and Kansas joined Texas in the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of three medical organizations.
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They also noted the need to show respect to students. The number was up to 418 past year from none in 2002, according to federal health officials.
