Seven states and a pediatrician group are suing the Biden administration for encouraging doctors to “affirm” children’s new gender identities and push them toward medical interventions.
The seven states, Missouri, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, and Arkansas along with the American College Of Pediatricians filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The suit takes issue with a controversial rule the agency adopted in April that would force doctors and other health care workers to follow the “affirming” model and provide transgender medical interventions. The rule redefined “sex discrimination” in health care to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” prompting backlash from critics.
The plaintiffs argue the rule established the “affirming” model an “unproven” new standard of care and violates the Affordable Care Act by requiring doctors to act against their sound medical judgment.
“Indeed, the rule requires doctors to provide and promote ‘social transitions,’ use of pronouns inconsistent with biological sex, experimental use of puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones for ‘gender-transition’ purposes, and perform harmful, sterilizing procedures on adults and children to appear to be the opposite sex, even if state law restricts these procedures. Doctors are even required to inaccurately code their patient’s charts based on gender identity rather than biological sex,” the American College Of Pediatricians said in a press release.
The lawsuit asks a Missouri federal court to permanently block the HHS rule.
Since April, three other federal courts in Tennessee, Florida, and Texas have stopped the rule from going into effect, court documents from the suit noted.
Dr. Jill Simons, executive director of the American College Of Pediatricians emphasized that doctors should “never be forced” to violate their sound medical judgment and perform “life-altering and sterilizing interventions.”
“Our doctors take an oath to do no harm, but the Biden administration’s rule forces them to violate this oath and perform procedures that are harmful and dangerous to our patients — vulnerable children. What the Biden Administration is calling for is wrong and unlawful,” Simons said in a statement.
In recent years, a wave of seemingly gender dysphoric children in both the U.S. and Europe have been approved for drugs and surgeries to make them appear as the opposite sex.
However, several European countries and U.S. states have pumped the brakes on these treatments.
At least 25 states have passed legislation banning or restricting transgender medical interventions for minors. In Florida, Ohio, and Montana, restrictions are held up in court.
