Attorney General Steve Marshall and 14 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a new rule by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that redefines the Affordable Care Act's prohibition against discrimination to include gender identity.
The new rule would mandate that medical providers perform surgeries and administer hormone drugs to both children and adults for gender transition without regard for a doctor's medical judgment as to whether that treatment is appropriate. It would further require that medical providers allow patients into sex-segregated spaces, such as parts of a hospital reserved only for women patients, on the basis of their gender identity rather than their biological sex. Healthcare workers would also be required to use gender-affirming pronouns and face punishment if they used biologically accurate pronouns.
"Despite repeated failed attempts, Biden's Administration continues to illegally mandate that medical providers provide gender-transition procedures or face harsh penalties. Alabama and our coalition partners will not stand for this radical and unconstitutional behavior," Marshall said. "In healthcare of all places, the reality of biological sex matters. The need to protect vulnerable children from sterilizing transitioning procedures matters. Of all the Biden Administration's misguided efforts, its campaign to replace biological sex with radical gender-identity theory may be the most pernicious because it is so obviously harmful and so obviously untrue."
In 2016, the Obama administration attempted a near-identical policy proposal prioritizing gender ideology over reasonable medical practices, even where medical providers believed gender-transition treatments or other procedures were not in the best interests of their patients. Federal courts declared the 2016 rule unlawful.
Other states in the lawsuit include Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.
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