The elimination of this definition not only invites health care insurers and providers to discriminate against LGBTQ people seeking health care, but it also introduces substantial confusion among health care providers and insurers regarding their legal obligations and the right of the populations they serve to be free from sex discrimination, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which held that discrimination based on transgender status or sexual orientation ‘necessarily entails discrimination based on sex.’ However, undeterred from their goal to foster discrimination against LGBTQ people, HHS published the Revised Rule, without any changes, four days after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock.
…
The Revised Rule, if allowed to go into effect, will undermine the progress achieved so far in eradicating health care discrimination against LGBTQ people in a broad array of health care programs and entities by inviting health care insurers and providers once again to discriminate against them, while also discouraging LGBTQ people from seeking health care in the first instance.
—- Excerpt from a complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by attorneys with Steptoe & Johnson and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund challenging the Trump administration rule changing the definition of “sex discrimination” in the Affordable Care Act to exclude transgender people, and citing the Supreme Court’s new decision in Bostock.