Montgomery, AL – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall recently announced a joint effort with 14 other states to challenge a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The rule redefines the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of “sex” to include “gender identity.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, aims to contest the new rule, which mandates that medical providers offer surgeries and administer hormone drugs for gender transition purposes without considering a doctor’s medical judgment. Additionally, the rule requires medical providers to grant access to sex-segregated spaces based on gender identity and use gender-affirming pronouns under threat of punishment.
Attorney General Marshall voiced strong opposition to the rule, labeling it as radical and unconstitutional. He emphasized the importance of protecting vulnerable children from what he described as harmful transitioning procedures and criticized the Biden Administration’s prioritization of gender ideology over reasonable medical practices.
The lawsuit draws parallels to a similar policy proposal by the Obama Administration in 2016, which was deemed unlawful by federal courts. The coalition of states involved in the current lawsuit anticipates a similar outcome.
The implementation of the new rule could have significant ramifications for states like Alabama, which restrict gender-transition interventions for minors and prohibit the use of public funds for such procedures. Non-compliant entities risk losing federal funding, including Medicaid funding, and exposure to civil liability through private lawsuits.
Alabama, along with Tennessee and Mississippi, co-leads the lawsuit, with support from Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia. The legal challenge underscores broader concerns about the balance between medical practices and gender identity rights in healthcare policies.
