WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives moved to intervene in a case currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, Doe v. Austin.
After the House filed a brief in federal court, Speaker Johnson released the following statement:
“Tax dollars should not support procedures and treatments that could permanently harm and sterilize young people. This year’s NDAA takes a critical and necessary step to protect the children of American servicemembers by adding a statutory prohibition regarding TRICARE coverage that is related to the case in Maine. House Republicans will not relent in taking action to protect America’s children from radical gender ideology and experimental drugs.”
Background:
The Plaintiffs in this case are two transgender women who receive health insurance through TRICARE as dependents of former servicemembers.
The Department of Justice has only made a half-hearted attempt to defend the constitutionality of the statute at issue — 10 U.S.C. § 1079(a)(11), a statutory provision that restricts TRICARE from providing dependents coverage for any surgery that “improves physical appearance” without “significantly restor[ing] functions,” including “sex gender changes.”
Given the Department’s inexcusable failure to identify a single governmental interest that the statute advanced, the District Court ruled in favor of the Plaintiffs, holding that statute as applied to them violated the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment.
Now, the Department has indicated that it wishes to settle the case. In light of the recently passed provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which adds a related statutory prohibition regarding TRICARE coverage for dependents, the House has an obligation to quickly try to intervene and defend this provision of law, including by filing an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
