The federal court in Fargo, North Dakota has found that a Biden-era HHS regulation and similar EEOC interpretations of Title VII require employers to cover gender transition services in their health plans, thus violating Catholic Benefits Association (CBA) members’ beliefs and right to religious freedom. Given this unconstitutional burden, on June 5, 2025, the court granted permanent protection to CBA’s more than 9,000 Catholic employers, including hospitals and medical providers.
Doug Wilson, CBA’s CEO said, “we are grateful for this, our fifth court victory, protecting our members from a host of immoral federal mandates.”
Just six weeks earlier, the federal court in Bismarck, North Dakota provided CBA members protection from the EEOC’s workplace harassment standards requiring the use of false pronouns, providing opposite-sex access to single-sex bathrooms, and forcing employers to accommodate employees seeking abortion.
Nancy Matthews, a long-time CBA board member, remarked, “this is still America, and religious freedom matters. Thank goodness for judges who recognize this.”
The joint HHS-EEOC regulations that the Fargo federal court enjoined on June 5 were issued in May 2024. They require coverage of gender transition services in health plans and mandate performing those procedures in the case of medical providers.
The Department of Justice attorneys representing the two federal agencies argued that each CBA member should be required to apply individually for religious exemptions, but the court rejected this argument because the CBA members “share the same beliefs regarding gender-transition procedures.”
The federal court found that the regulations “violate” CBA members’ “sincerely held religious beliefs.” It then permanently enjoined both EEOC and HHS from interpreting or enforcing the Civil Rights Act or the Affordable Care Act against the dioceses, parishes, Catholic hospitals and colleges, Catholic Charities, and Catholic-owned business that make up the Catholic Benefits Association.
The ruling this past Thursday was the result of 9 years of litigation by the CBA on behalf of its members and is the first case in the country to win permanent injunctive relief against these mandates. The original HHS interpretation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act was issued in 2016, substantially revamped to protect religious freedom in 2020, and then changed by the Biden administration to include transgender procedures and drugs in 2024.
To read the full order from the United State District Court for North Dakota, click here.