Team Biden's mandate that requires healthcare providers and religious employers to provide transgender surgeries, counseling, and procedures against their religious beliefs has been blocked by a federal court.
District Judge Daniel M. Traynor granted a request by the Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) for a preliminary injunction in the May 16 court order.
The injunction enjoined the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from interpreting or enforcing the law against the CEA “in a manner that would require its present or future members to provide insurance coverage for gender transition services.”
“No government agency ought to be in the business of evaluating the sincerity of another’s religious beliefs,” the court order said.
“HHS Guidance encourages a parent to file a complaint if a medical provider refuses to gender transition their child, of any age, including an infant,” the court order continued. “The thought that a newborn child could be surgically altered to change gender is the result of the Biden HHS Notification and HHS Guidance that brands a medical professional’s refusal to do so as discrimination.”
“Indeed, the HHS Guidance specifically invites the public to file complaints for acting in a manner the Alliance says is consistent with their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the order continued. “The Alliance must either violate its sincerely held beliefs or face monetary losses, fines, and even civil liabilities. The Plaintiffs and their members face a very real irreparable harm if they are either forced to comply or if they refuse to comply.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), requested the preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the CEA.
The HHS policy re-defined the word “sex” in the context of healthcare anti-discrimination laws to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” — thus forcing religious providers receiving federal funds to perform or “facilitate surgeries and procedures that conflict with their deeply held beliefs,” ADF said.
Team Biden's policy reversed a June 2020 rule put in place by the Trump administration saying that “sex” is “determined by biology” and clarifying that sex discrimination in the context of health care and coverage does not include abortion.
“All employers and healthcare providers, including those in the Christian Employers Alliance, have the constitutional right to conduct their business and render treatment in a manner consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs,” ADF Legal Counsel Jacob Reed said in a statement.
“The employers we represent believe that God purposefully created humans as either male or female, and so it would violate their religious beliefs to pay for or perform life-altering medical procedures or surgeries that seek to change one’s biological sex,” added Reed, who had argued on behalf of CEA before the court. “The court was on firm ground to halt enforcement of these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith.”
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