Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden-Harris administration to stop a new regulation that would rewrite federal disability law to include “gender dysphoria.”
On Thursday, Paxton—alongside the States of Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia—filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Xavier Becerra to block a new rule that they say “unlawfully attempts to contort federal disability law to list ‘gender dysphoria’ as a disability.”
According to the lawsuit, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a new rule in May 2024 which would upend federal disability law by adding “gender dysphoria” to the definition of disability under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
The act protects qualified individuals from discrimination based on their disability. Under the law, individuals with disabilities are defined as “persons with a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Employers that receive financial assistance from any federal department or agency—like the DHHS—are forbidden to exclude or deny individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to receive program benefits and services.
The Biden-Harris administration published the Final Rule to assert that “gender dysphoria . . . may be considered a physical or mental impairment” entitled to protection, though federal law excludes transvestism, transsexualism, and other gender identity disorders from being classified as disabilities.
Paxton and the 16 other states claim that the Final Rule’s requirement that gender dysphoria be considered a disability “is contrary to the express language in the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA.”
Additionally, they say that the rule is capricious and arbitrary due to the fact that the DHHS “failed to conduct a meaningful inquiry into the cost to States,” has created “conflicting obligations and permission structures between different federal agencies,” “prevents States from innovating and improving their service delivery systems,” and created a regime that is close to impossible for any state to fully comply with.
The plaintiffs are asking that the Court issue permanent injunctive relief enjoining DHHS from enforcing the Final Rule, declare the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and declare the rule unlawful.
“The Biden Administration is once again abusing executive action to sidestep federal law and force unscientific, unfounded gender ideology onto the public,” said Paxton. “Texas is suing because HHS has no authority to unilaterally rewrite statutory definitions and classify ‘gender dysphoria’ as a disability.”
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