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A group of government workers filed a lawsuit this week against the Trump administration over a policy to end gender-affirming care for adults through federal employee health insurance offerings.

The five government workers who are suing the administration are being represented by the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that promotes and defends LGBTQ causes. The workers argue that the policy violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on sex.

The lawsuit specifically targets the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages health insurance plans for federal workers. In a letter sent to insurance carriers last year, OPM stated that it would no longer accept plans that included “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions (to include ‘gender transition’ services).” However, OPM still allows plans to cover the same procedures for cisgender employees in other situations.

“By prohibiting coverage for gender-affirming care, OPM has discriminated, and continues to discriminate, against Plaintiffs and the class they represent on the basis of sex,” the lawsuit declares.

The new OPM guidance does allow for insurers to continue providing care to transgender recipients if they are “mid-treatment” — that is, if they began receiving gender-affirming care before the new policy was implemented. However, as the plaintiffs point out, the agency “does not define ‘mid-treatment,’ identify the criteria carriers must or should use to determine whether a beneficiary qualifies for an exception, specify how beneficiaries may seek review of an adverse determination, or address whether beneficiaries who chose or were forced to change…plans for Plan........

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