EPP to HHS: ‘Gender Dysphoria is Not a Disability’
“At the time Congress enacted the ADA in 1990, no one spoke of a person’s sex being “assigned at birth,” as if it were a matter about which there could be some doubt.”
On January 20, 2026, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) submitted a comment to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) concerning a newly proposed rule change that seeks to clarify that individuals suffering from “gender dysphoria” are not considered disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The proposed clarification was necessary because of a 2024 Biden-era rule that simply declared, contradicting the plain text and cases interpreting the ADA, that “gender dysphoria does not fall with the statutory exclusions for gender identity disorders.”
In other words, gender dysphoria qualifies as a disability. Having come entirely out of the left-field, the Trump Administration is now seeking to clear up the confusion.
EPP offered HHS two additional considerations in support of the proposed rule change, based on our experience and expertise.
At the time Congress enacted the ADA in 1990, no one spoke of a person’s sex being “assigned at birth,” as if it were a matter about which there could be some doubt.
No one spoke of men “transitioning” to become women, and then perhaps “transitioning” back to become men again, as if one’s sex was merely a social or cultural costume. Instead, “gender” was simply another term for a person’s biological sex, either male or female, but in either case fixed and permanent.
Under the ADA, “disability” is defined as: (A) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; (B) a record of such an impairment; or (C) being regarded as having such an impairment.”
The ADA further explicitly excludes certain conditions from the definition of “disability,” which explicitly includes “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments.” This plain meaning is also how the courts have interpreted the statute.
While trendy gender identity theories may be debated in the culture at large, they are a poor basis for legal definitions.
The use of “gender” to distinguish between femininity and masculinity, as aspects of personality and behavior, only gained currency in the 1960s.
Disputes about “sex,” “gender,” and “gender identity” have since become intensely contentious, with scholars and advocates urging diametrically opposite conclusions. This little-known history, while highly persuasive to those with a political agenda to refine “sex” as something other than biology, is irrelevant to the applicable statutory definitions under the ADA.
Ideological fashions are fleeting, and nothing ensures that the current transgender paradigm is scientifically valid, or will remain dominant.
Accordingly, EPP supports HHS’s decision to pursue rulemaking to clarify whether “gender dysphoria” meets the statutory definition of “disability.
It doesn’t, and the proposed rule will allow the Department to focus on ensuring truly disabled individuals receive the proper legal protections.
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Comments
its.a 2 way street on this one
calling them mentally ill
either sets them off
or
gives them special privileges
Agreed.
There seems to be a choice here:
Consider gender dysphoria “normal” and not/never a disability.
Consider gender dysphoria a mental health problem and (potentially) disabling.
Does the ADA cover mental health problems as “disabilities”? If it does, the conservative narrative (to which I adhere) would seem to demand that gender dysphoria be identified as a “disability” due to being a mental illness. This is not to say that all people with any given mental illness are “disabled,” but certainly many mental health problems have a spectrum that range from “competent/functional” to “severely disabled.”
Is gender dysphoria a mental illness that is never disabling? Or is it just not a mental illness at all?
I believe gender dysphoria is a mental illness and potentially disabling. Not all mental illnesses nor each instance of a specific illness are disabling. HOWEVER, it is way way over assigned in my opinion. This is not the first time a mental illness has become trendy and is over assigned and it likely won’t be the last.
I also believe gender dysphoria is often accompanied by other mental illnesses, some of which might be quite severe and disabling in and of themselves. In fact those other illnesses may be more severe than gender dysphoria and often are.
One size does not fit all and that is the major problem with shoehorning a person’s issues into a category (or box) mostly for either treatment, insurance purposes, or both.
Correct gender dysphoria is a mental illness.
It is also a mental illness among the mental health professionals that believe they can solve the mental illness by enhancing the mentally ill’s delusions.
The purpose of the ADA is to provide accommodation for clients with disabilities. These disabilities are physical in nature, not psychological. You can put a ramp in for a wheelchair user, but you can’t reasonably promise to provide 100% spider-free lodging for a tenant with arachnophobia. You can’t be compelled to provide nightly under-the-bed boogieman checks. And if Son of Sam asks you to accommodate his service dog, are you doing a good thing or maybe not?
Wrong, the purpose of the ADA is to ensure good oral hygiene.
the ada was another gov takeover of business
it takes very little to get businesses to change or better themselves when the people boycott….protest etc
jesse jackson proved that
“gender dysphoria”
A condition for pre-kindergartners. By the time you have reached kindergarten and compared yours with theirs, most kids are able to figure out which is which.
If you’re still in doubt just ask the kid sitting next to you.
Brilliant!
Or Joe Biden.
Pretty sure he sniffs no matter what the sex, gender, or “gender identity” of the kids is…
I hear Jill and Cokehead are writing a biography about his leg hair.
I’ll wait for Paramount plus to come out with the movie version.
They’ll even crater that franchise.
why the f are we listening to the leftists
stop it already
they mentally masturbate on how the mentally ill who murder and rape etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into “healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!!!?!?!?!?!?!??!
Because besides demonrats, “Stinky” Soros & Sons also buy off DA’s, AG’s, Judges, and RINOs.
ok we try it this way:
why the f are we listening to the leftists
stop it already
they mentally mas turb ate on how the mentally ill who murder and rape etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into “healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!
People don’t have “genders”.
The colloquial or Victorianish avoidance of the word “sex” by substituting “gender” only confuses the issues. Please stop.
“Gender” has never been a synonym for “sex”.
Some of the confusion also has been facilitated over the past few decades by the explosion in the usage of the word “gender” as an adjective, for example, “gender studies” — how gender, or genderization of various THINGS (social customs and mores, dress codes, employment etc.) affects men and women differently.
Academics transmogrified “women’s studies” into “gender studies” (also adding the further distortion of “intersectionality”), but “sex studies” is something that would belong in the university biology department.
Lawyers and judges who ignorantly confound “gender” and “sex” are as much to blame as media and academic activists, because they should know better. The “gender” in “gender discrimination”, “gender-discriminatory law”, “gender-neutral” law and the like modifies things — actions, laws, policies, and so forth. Those actions, laws, and policies are not discriminating against anyone’s “gender”. The action, law, or policy is what is “gendered” and because of that, the action, law, or policy may effect “sex” discrimination.
Sloppy language usage in the law needs to stop.
The word confusion in lawsuits and legal headscratchings would be substantially ameliorated by simply pointing out that people do not have “genders”.
“Gender” refers to the artificial or stereotypical categorization of certain words, ideas, abilities, and other things (including, e.g. appearance), as having traits like or being associated with a “sex” — “feminine” (associated with the female sex), “masculine” (associated with the male sex), or “neuter” (neutral, associated with neither sex).
“Sex” refers to the biological role that the individual plays in reproduction.
There are only two of these roles, “male” and “female”. That is not altered because some people cannot reproduce because of age, injury, disease, or a chromosomal or hormonal developmental anomaly. The latter is a birth defect, not a variation.
As far as what is or is not a “disability”, that should hinge solely on the extent of an individual’s delusional thinking and ability to function in the real world, and not on made-up crap voted by psychologists to be included in the DSM in order to make their ubiquitously non-existent and/or non-efficacious “treatments” paid for by insurance.
Yes, gender: masculine and feminine refer to sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation). Trans refers to a state or process of divergence.
Homosexuality was a mental illness until the 1970s when political pressure changed it to a glorious personal preference. Now, conservatives on this site and so-called Catholics think it’s just dandy.
Perhaps in a generation the commentators on this site and will feel likewise about transsexualism, incest and pedophilia.
they did the same with alcohol…ism
it went from being a sickness to a disability
thats why the blm knows to every chance you get
claim your kid is autistic
call your selves a civil rights org>>live tax free and collect tax money when no one is looking
Social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress is a fetus… feature. Pedo is the third leg of the liberal triad. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
All’s fair in lust and abortion.
If the three corporations that control all of the major mess media have their way.
ok we try it this way:
why the f are we listening to the leftists
stop it already
they mentally ma5 turb 8 on how the mentally ill who murder and rape etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into “healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!
why are we listening to the leftists
stop it already
they mentally ma5 turb 8 on how the mentally ill who murder and rape etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into
“healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!
why are we listening to the leftists
stop it already
they mentally jerrk off on how the mentally ill who murder and rape etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into
“healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!
lefty mentally jerrks theselves off on how the mentally ill who murder and rap e etc cannot be put in prison…taken off the streets and instead put into
“healthcare” facilities which are merely to get them out of the spotlight so that they can then be put back out on the streets while these facilities continue to launder money back and forth with the dnc
and then the left rallies against maga
why/how is it that the left is allowed to have power!
OK… STOP.