The U.S. House of Representatives is no longer asking to intervene in a Maine woman's lawsuit against the military's health insurance provider over transgender care now that she has dropped the case.
The woman, who is from Sagadahoc County and whose father is a veteran, sued the Department of Defense in U.S. District Court in Portland in late 2022 after she was denied coverage for procedures to help treat her gender dysphoria. She alleged the program's rule against "sex gender changes" was discriminatory because it only applied to transgender patients.
She and another woman suing from Florida agreed to drop their case on Dec. 20 without reaching a settlement, about a month after U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen found that the military's insurance, TRICARE, violated the women's constitutional rights. (Neither woman is identified in court records.)
Torresen's ruling was not final, however, because she wanted the parties to discuss possible relief. Her ruling will be dropped along with the rest of the case.
Settlement talks appear to have derailed when the House threatened to intervene. Lawyers for the House, directed by Republican leadership, said they believed the case would interfere with their efforts to ban certain treatment for transgender children of military members.
The House withdrew its motions on Wednesday after Department of Justice said "the only thing the parties agreed was that this case would be dismissed."
"There was no separate settlement agreement, much less any monetary or equitable relief provided to Plaintiffs," the DOJ wrote in court records.
The women were represented by a team of lawyers and the Boston firm GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, otherwise known as GLAD. A spokesperson for the firm said Friday they don't have anything to add about the case beyond what's in court records.
Their lawyers argued that TRICARE's coverage rules were outdated, rooted in the "remnants of decades-old fallacy and bias that gender affirming surgeries are cosmetic, for purposes of beautification, and frivolous."
They also pointed out the rules were being applied unfairly. Active-duty military members have been able to get coverage for gender-affirming surgeries under TRICARE, while their dependents have not.
On Dec. 23, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping Defense bill in which the House added a provision to strip coverage of transgender medical treatments for military members' children.
While Biden said he supports the act's investment in military personnel, he "strongly opposes" changes to transgender care "which inhibits the Department of Defense's ability to treat all persons equally under the law, no matter their gender identity."
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