A federal judge on Friday ruled against a Trump administration provision to to remove gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit covered under the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 law (also known as Obamacare) which requires the federal government to subsidize such benefits.
Senior U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton (an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush) ruled that Trump’s Department of Health exceeded its authority when, in 2025, it issued the Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Final Rule. The rule said that, beginning in 2026, new individual and small-group insurance plans would exclude certain gender-affirming procedures from the federal government’s list of pre-approved and subsidized essential health benefits, Advocate reported.
Related
Twenty-one states sued the administration over the rule’s provisions, stating that the department violated federal rule-making laws while illegally revoking people’s healthcare coverage and harming them with increased costs.
Some attorneys general from those states celebrated Judge Gorton’s ruling.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
“The federal government tried to illegally deny promised health coverage that Washingtonians rely on,” said Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown. “As this administration tries to make health care more expensive and difficult to access, we will fight to keep it as affordable and accessible as possible.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said, “This victory blocks the Trump Administration’s attempt to make gender-affirming care more expensive and less accessible. Gender-affirming care is critical to the emotional and physical well-being of transgender individuals, and the Trump Administration does not have the authority to unlawfully make this care less accessible and more expensive for patients and families.”
The Trump administration has taken numerous steps to eradicate trans people from all public life, including denying them essential, life-saving, gender-affirming care in hospitals and prisons nationwide. Administration officials have threatened to end all federal healthcare funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for youth.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the Trump administration’s enforcement of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking the personal and confidential health records of trans youth. Past court rulings quashed the subpoenas, calling the DOJ’s campaign a “fishing expedition” intended to “harass” and “intimidate,” and to end gender-affirming care through “fear.”
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.