By Stephanie Armour

Two dozen Democratic attorneys general on Monday sued the Trump administration to block its rule ending protection against discrimination in health care for transgender patients.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks an immediate halt to the rule, which the Department of Health and Human Services issued last month.

The rule reversed an earlier Obama-era interpretation of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that barred discrimination by health organizations against patients based on age, race, color, disability, national origin or sex. The Obama administration’s definition of sex included gender identity, which meant most insurers couldn’t refuse treatment related to gender transitioning.

The lawsuit says the rule unlawfully ignores the harm it creates for vulnerable populations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, individuals with limited English proficiency and women.

The change was championed by Roger Severino, who heads HHS’s Office for Civil Rights and is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. He launched a division to defend the rights of the deeply religious, whom he sees as an oppressed class in need of protection.

He also helped push through a rule that would let health-industry workers who object to medical procedures on religious grounds opt out of providing certain types of medical care. A federal court in Manhattan struck down the rule and HHS has appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The rule is part of a broader Trump administration effort to advance religious protections, which have led to a spate of lawsuits. Read more via Wall St Journal