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Trump administration sued for refusing to answer freedom of information requests about HHS’s LGBTQ nondiscrimination rules
Lambda Legal believes outside groups may have influenced HHS officials to adopt anti-LGBTQ policies
Lambda Legal has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over its refusal to release information and documents, including communications with outside organizations, relating to decisions about the ability of LGBTQ people to access health care services.
Lambda Legal previously filed three requests seeking such information under the Freedom of Information Act more than a year ago, hoping to find some discussion or justification for the Trump administration’s decision to suspend the publication and implementation of LGBTQ nondiscrimination rules and regulations.
Unfortunately, HHS has provided no records for any of Lambda Legal’s requests, prompting the LGBTQ legal advocacy organization to file suit in federal court. Additionally, the agency only partially responded to one of Lambda Legal’s FOIA requests, and did not respond to the other two at all.
“Since taking office, the Trump administration has sought to undermine the mission of the Department of Health and Human Services, and sought to promote discrimination against LGBTQ people in all spheres of life, particularly in health care,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a senior staff attorney and health care strategist at Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “We deserve to know how and why they have made these decisions.”
One of the FOIA requests requested information on whether officials at HHS communicated with any one of nearly two dozen socially conservative think tanks or political organizations, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, and whether those communications influenced decisions on LGBTQ-related policies.
Another FOIA request asked for records belonging to, created by, addressed to, or sent to political appointees that mentioned, in whole or in part, discussed, referenced, or related to LGBTQ matters or people.
The third, a multi-part request, demanded records that mentioned or referred to HHS’s decision about whether to post, publish, or enforce any rule or regulation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex stereotypes, or transgender status against HHS employees, staff, contractors, or subcontractors, including the ability of LGBTQ individuals to access restrooms or other sex-designated facilities. That request also sought information about any decisions on rules or regulations prohibiting various forms of anti-LGBTQ discrimination in Medicare and Medicaid.
In December, after not hearing from HHS, Lambda Legal filed an administrative appeal, to which the department has also failed to respond.
The FOIA requests were prompted by reports that Trump administration appointees were overruling career staff and cancelling or delaying implementation of rules and initiatives dealing with reproductive health care and health care for LGBTQ people, including access to transition-related care.
Other reports claimed that HHS had worked with outside organizations to try and undermine existing nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Such actions included creating a new “Conscience and Religious Freedom” division within HHS to allow health care workers to refuse to perform procedures or provide certain types of health care if they have moral or religious objections to a person’s medical decisions — which has since been bolstered by a Trump executive order enumerating those “religious liberty” or “conscience protections.”
As part of its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Lambda Legal asks the court to compel HHS to provide responses to its FOIA requests, arguing that the agency has had sufficient time to find and share the information requested on communications related to LGBTQ health care. The organization also asks that HHS pay its attorney fees and other compensation for its work.
“Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of our democracy, and the Freedom of Information Act is a vital part of citizens’ ability to understand how the government works and hold politicians accountable,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “HHS cannot be allowed to flout our laws, to devise discriminatory policies behind closed doors, and to work in the dark with outside organizations in order to promote discrimination against LGBTQ people.”
Federal Judge Victoria Calvert has permanently blocked a portion of Georgia’s law banning prisoners from receiving gender-affirming care, ruling on Dec. 3 that the state’s blanket ban on hormone therapy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in May and implemented in July, the law bars prisoners from receiving hormone therapy or other treatment for gender dysphoria -- even when a doctor deems it medically necessary. It prohibits the state from funding such care and blocks transgender inmates from paying for it themselves. Non-transgender prisoners, however, may still receive hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments so long as the care is not related to gender transition.
On Monday, November 10, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected former Kentucky county clerk and same-sex marriage opponent Kim Davis' appeal of a lower court's decision against her -- including a petition demanding that the court revisit and overturn its landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
The nation's highest court denied a writ of certiorari, which would have signaled its intention to review Davis' case -- and the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodgesdecision, which struck down state-level bans on same-sex marriage. It would have taken four justices to agree to hear Davis' challenge.
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