Trump Administration Defends Transgender Health-Care Bias Rule

A Health and Human Service Department rule implementing Obamacare’s nondiscrimination section—rewritten to eliminate gender identity from its prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex—closely tracks the law and should be allowed to take effect, the agency told a federal court.

Federal officials asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia July 24 to deny health-care providers’ motion to block enforcement of the new rule, which is scheduled to take effect Aug. 18.

The providers, including the Whitman Walker Clinic Inc. in Washington, lack standing to challenge the new rule because it doesn’t harm them, the agency ...