President Donald Trump salutes as he attends a military parade commemorating the Army”s 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Washington, as Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and first lady Melania Trump, watch. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson).
A trio of military families is suing the Trump administration in federal court over a recent policy that bars gender-affirming care.
In March, a sub-agency within the Department of Defense (DoD) gave effect to a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump by instructing TRICARE, the military’s health insurance plan, to stop covering procedures and services associated with “treatment of gender dysphoria” for “individuals under 19 years of age.”
On Monday, in a 32-page complaint, the pseudonymous plaintiffs – Diana Doe, Nathan Noe, and Parker Poe – sued the DoD and several named Trump administration officials over the policy.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge “to hold unlawful and set aside” the new policies under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the statute governing the behavior of agencies and departments.
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The plaintiffs say the new rules issued by the DoD have forced their families – and very likely others in their position – into a financially precarious position and risked their overall health.
“Their prescriptions have been cut off without notice,” the lawsuit reads. “Their trusted doctors at military hospitals have been forced to abandon them. Plaintiffs’ families now face significant, and in some cases crushing, out-of-pocket costs or the prospect of watching their family member’s health deteriorate without the medications that kept them healthy and stable. This is not an abstract policy shift—it is an immediate and devastating disruption of essential healthcare that affects the physical and psychological wellbeing of Plaintiffs and other young people throughout the country.”
The plaintiffs say they have relied on TRICARE providing gender-affirming care for “nearly a decade.” Such services were provided by both military medical treatment facilities and military pharmacies, the lawsuit says – and outlined in TRICARE’s own policy manual.
“Consistent with this scientific evidence and accepted medical standards, TRICARE has covered puberty-blocking medications and hormone therapy when indicated for transgender adolescents, and hormone therapy when indicated for transgender adults,” the filing goes on.
The abrupt about-face to stop providing “medically necessary medications” is part of a “targeted reversal” to “strip equal rights from transgender people” and reflects the 45th and 47th president’s “hostile views toward transgender people,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit says these changes have collectively “unlawfully modified the scope of medical care provided” to military families.
And these changes, the complaint explains, fly in the face of generally-accepted medical practice – even where minors are concerned.
“Under accepted protocols, physicians do not prescribe puberty-blocking medications or hormones to adolescent minors unless they have obtained informed consent from a parent and assent from the minor,” the filing continues. “Physicians must disclose the known risks and benefits of each medication to obtain informed parental consent and minor assent.”
The lawsuit takes a highly personalized approach by explaining each of the plaintiffs’ own struggles with gender dysphoria as a child.
One representative section reads, at length:
As early as elementary school, Nathan felt uncomfortable being seen as a girl. Even before he had language to explain it and before he could tell others, he identified as a boy and did what he could to live that way…
As he grew, Nathan had multiple conversations with his parents about not feeling like or being a girl and wanting to be a boy. Nathan’s parents increasingly became aware of the distress Nathan experienced when others did not treat him as a boy. As Nathan approached puberty and his distress over not being recognized and treated as a boy intensified, his parents sought medical advice from a healthcare provider.
The lawsuit was filed in Maryland district court by attorneys with GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman, a Joe Biden appointee.
“This is a sweeping reversal of military health policy and a betrayal of military families who have sacrificed for our country,” GLAD said in a press release announcing the litigation. “When a servicemember is deployed, they deserve to know their family is taken care of.”
In legal terms, the plaintiffs say the DoD “failed to offer any explanation at all” in support for the change in policy and similarly did not consider “all relevant factors” when making the shift. Short-circuiting the process in this manner amounts to an action considered “arbitrary and capricious” under the APA, the lawsuit alleges.
In another challenge, the plaintiffs say any changes to TRICARE coverage require a formal announcement under the notice-and-comment rulemaking standard outlined in the APA – as well as similar rules outlined in two additional statutes relevant to government-provided health insurance. And, as a result, since no such notice was provided here, the government failed to comply with the “procedures required for all new substantive rules, and thus impermissibly promulgated a new rule in violation of the APA,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also challenges the Trump administration’s effort to stop providing gender-affirming care for certain adults – who are 18 or 19 years old – as a direct violation of an appropriations bill passed by Congress.
“The Executive Branch cannot usurp Congress’s legislative authority on its own mandate; any legislative authority wielded by the Executive Branch must have been delegated within the confines of the Constitutional limitations protecting the respective spheres of government,” the complaint continues. “The Executive Branch has no constitutional power to enact, amend, or repeal parts of duly enacted statutes.”
