Trump administration faces complaints over the removal of gender-affirming care from federal health insurance plans
“This policy is not about cost or care – it is about driving transgender people," says Human Rights Campaign Foundation president Kelley Robinson
By Aaron Sugg
The Trump administration has faced backlash over a new policy that removes coverage for gender-affirming care from federal health insurance plans.
The policy, announced by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in August was officially introduced yesterday (1 January 2026), affecting federal employees and US Postal Service workers.
The complaint was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on behalf of affected employees.
“This policy is not about cost or care” – Human Rights Campaign Foundation president Kelley Robinson on the Trump administration’s trans policies
“This policy is not about cost or care – it is about driving transgender people, and people with transgender spouses, children and dependants, out of the federal workforce,” Human Rights Campaign Foundation president Kelley Robinson said in a statement.
The HRC argues that the policy amounts to sex-based discrimination and is intended to push transgender people and their families out of the federal workforce.
The policy eliminates coverage for what the Office of Personnel Management describes as “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits”.
“This is not medicine; it is malpractice” – health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr on trans gender-affirming care to children
The move is part of broader efforts by President Donald Trump to restrict gender-affirming care in the US, particularly for minors.
In December, the administration proposed blocking Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children, with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr slamming trans healthcare as “This is not medicine; it is malpractice.”
These measures began following Trump’s return to office at the start of 2025. On his first day of his second presidential term, he reinstated a policy recognising only two sexes, male and female.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project described Trump’s efforts as troubling.
“The multitude of efforts we are seeing from federal legislators to strip transgender and non-binary youth of the healthcare they need is deeply troubling,” he said in a statement.
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