Claiming “Crushing Out-of-Pocket Costs” Military Families Sue DOD to Restore Kids’ Transgender Treatments

Although the Defense Authorization Act signed by former President Biden blocks the U.S. Military’s healthcare system from providing specialized treatments to the transgender children of service members, three families are suing the Department of Defense (DOD) to reinstate the benefit, claiming they have been left with “significant” and “crushing out-of-pocket costs.” Leftist groups were outraged when the measure passed late last year and called on Biden to veto it because it bans the military’s Tricare Health Plan from covering gender-affirming care such as hormone therapy and puberty-suppressants to treat “gender dysphoria.” An analysis cited by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a leader in the campaign opposing the military’s transgender healthcare ban, estimates that 2,500 minor patients receive care for gender dysphoria through Tricare and 900 get puberty-suppressants or gender-affirming hormones.

In their lawsuit against the DOD military personnel with transgender children claim that Tricare’s sudden refusal to cover medically necessary care has inflicted profound harm and that plaintiffs’ families now face significant and crushing out-of-pocket costs. “This is not an abstract policy shift – it is an immediate and devastating disruption of essential health care that affects the physical and psychological well-being of plaintiffs and other young people throughout the country,” according to the complaint filed this month by two LGBTQ+ rights groups on behalf of the families. The transgender patients are not named to protect their privacy and are identified in the complaint as Diana Doe, Nathan Noe, and Parker Poe. The first two were taking hormones prescribed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland and were recently told by doctors that the treatments would no longer be covered under Tricare. The third plaintiff, Poe, is identified in the lawsuit as a young adult who has been taking testosterone covered by Tricare at an unnamed medical facility. Without Tricare coverage the testosterone prescription is “too expensive to purchase out-of-pocket,” the complaint states, adding that the “process has resulted in unnecessary stress and panic.”

Servicemembers and their families have been able to obtain puberty blockers or cross-sex hormone therapy for their transgender children through the military insurance for nearly a decade, one of the LGBTQ+ groups that filed the lawsuit writes in a statement that blames President Trump for ordering the DOD to terminate the essential care. “As a result of the Trump administration’s directive, the families’ trusted doctors cannot provide ongoing care and families are unfairly forced to take on this financial burden,” according to the group, which accuses the Trump administration of waging a relentless assault on transgender Americans and issuing a barrage of discriminatory executive orders designed to strip away their basic legal rights and deny them recognition. The reality is that the defense bill signed by Biden back in December 2024 bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth whose parents are active-duty military personnel. Leftist groups like the ACLU mounted a campaign to pressure Biden to veto the bill, but he signed it even though it prohibits insurance coverage for “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria,” including the hormone therapy and puberty-suppressants taken by the minors in this lawsuit.

Tricare has never covered the costly transgender sex change operations for adults but until recently provided hormone therapy and psychological counseling for gender dysphoria, which is identified by the plan as “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.” Before Trump’s second presidency, Tricare allowed active-duty service members to request a waiver for “medically necessary gender affirming surgery,” but the pricey operation was typically denied and two enlisted men who identify as women sued the DOD claiming the policy discriminates based on sex and transgender status. Less than a year ago, an Obama-appointed federal judge ruled in their favor, determining that the military’s health insurance plan is discriminatory and violates Equal Protection rights under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution by failing to pay for gender transition surgeries, which the judge compared to mastectomies and hysterectomies due to cancer.