Fed Employees File Complaint Against Trump Admin Ban On Gender-Related Care
The Trump administration is facing a new legal grievance from a cohort of government employees impacted by a forthcoming policy, effective Thursday, that abolishes coverage for gender-related healthcare in federal health insurance programs.
The complaint, submitted on Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign on behalf of the employees, addresses an August declaration from the Office of Personnel Management indicating the cessation of coverage for “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” in health insurance plans for federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers.
The complaint contends that the refusal to provide coverage for gender-transition care constitutes sex-based discrimination and requests that the personnel office revoke the policy.
“This policy is not about cost or care—it is about driving transgender people and people with transgender spouses, children, and dependents out of the federal workforce,” Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Kelley Robinson said in a statement announcing the move.
The grievance submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission comprises statements from four current federal employees at the State Department, Health and Human Services, and the Postal Service who the removal of coverage would directly impact.
The complaint states that a Postal Service employee has a daughter for whom doctors have advised puberty blockers and possibly hormone replacement therapy due to her diagnosed gender dysphoria. These treatments would not be covered under the new OPM policy.
The complaint indicates that the workers are asserting the claim on behalf of themselves and a “class of similarly situated federal employees.”
The Trump administration has implemented additional measures to limit healthcare access for transgender Americans, especially minors. In December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services proposed measures to prohibit gender-transition care for minors, including a policy that would deny Medicare and Medicaid funding to hospitals offering such services to children.
High-ranking Trump officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., characterize gender-affirming care for minors as “malpractice.”
However, such restrictions contradict the recommendations of prominent medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Before Christmas, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors, such as surgery and hormone supply, and punish providers with up to ten years in federal prison.
On a vote of 216 to 211, the bill—which civil rights organizations claimed was among the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress—was approved nearly entirely along party lines.
It is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate, where it would require a bipartisan alliance to move forward.
However, the ultraconservative Republican majority and President Trump’s priorities were reflected in its discussion and passage in the House.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia pushed it through the House after she demanded earlier this month that Speaker Mike Johnson bring her bill to the floor in exchange for her backing of the defense policy measure she was otherwise threatening to sabotage.
According to Greene, the legislation fulfilled one of Trump’s major campaign pledges, and Congress must take action to formalize his executive order banning gender-affirming medical procedures.
“Most Americans agree that kids just need to grow up before they do anything radical, like a mastectomy on a 15-year-old girl,” she said on Wednesday on the House floor, pointing at a poster board of a child who had undergone such a surgery.
Greene has recently gained odd new respect from several top Democrats for disagreeing with the president on a number of important issues.
She abruptly announced last month that she was leaving Congress one year before the end of her term.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
