National Pediatricians Group Joins 7-State Lawsuit Against HHS Rule Establishing Experimental Gender Drugs and Procedures as ‘Standard of Care’ for Gender Dysphoria

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit in conjunction with seven states against the Biden Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over its rule mandating that states and healthcare providers promote and provide young people with experimental medical interventions consistent with so-called “gender-affirming care.”

Dr. Jill Simons, executive director of ACPeds, said regarding the lawsuit:

The American College of Pediatricians is filing this lawsuit against HHS because doctors should never be forced to violate their sound medical judgment and perform life-altering and sterilizing interventions on their patients. 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.

From ACPeds’ Biological Integrity website

Missouri Attorney General (AG) Andrew Bailey led the coalition in filing the suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The AG’s office press statement explains the Biden rule “that forces healthcare providers to perform harmful gender-transition intervention procedures and forces states to pay for these procedures” is “illegal.”

“The rule, which Congress did not authorize, distorts Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] to mandate that States and healthcare providers comply with a radical transgender ideology regardless of their personal beliefs regarding the wisdom and efficacy of transgender interventions,” the statement adds.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue:

The rule purports to implement the sex-discrimination prohibition in Section 1557 of the ACA, but there is no gender-transition mandate in that statute, nor in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 from which it is derived. Nor did the rule (or the ACA) satisfy the constitutional requirements of clear notice for such a mandate: the States and healthcare providers did not agree to provide, pay for, or affirm gender-transition procedures when they began Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP.

“Joe Biden is once again exceeding his legal authority in order to force his radical transgender ideology onto the American people,” Bailey said:

His Administration is threatening to hold federal funding hostage from any healthcare provider that refuses to perform or affirm harmful and irreversible transgender procedures. I am filing suit because I will not allow out-of-touch federal bureaucrats to force Missouri healthcare providers into performing experimental and dangerous gender transition procedures on the taxpayer dime.

From Facebook account of AG Andrew Bailey

In addition to ACPeds, the attorneys general of Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah joined the lawsuit.

The Biden rule, ACPeds argues, “establishes so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ as the new, although unproven, ‘standard of care’ for those who express discomfort with their biological sex.”

The pediatricians say 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. 

ACPeds filed a public comment against the rule in October 2022, and, in June, launched its declaration titled “Doctors Protecting Children,” in which the group called for an end to the promotion of experimental drugs and surgeries to treat children with gender dysphoria.

According to ACPeds, more than 75,000 physicians and healthcare professionals, to date, have signed the declaration.

The organization also recently launched its project titled “Biological Integrity,” a medical resource for parents, teens, physicians, schools, and policymakers on the issue of gender dysphoria.